The Wide World of Dirt

Coming into the 2001 season, Dale Earnhardt, Incorporated looked to make a statement.

The team expanded to three full-time teams, bringing in veteran driver Michael Waltrip to drive the #15 NAPA Chevrolet Monte Carlo. The hope was that Waltrip would bring a seasoned approach to the team that would rub off on their two young drivers.

Returning for his sophomore season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. came off of an up-and-down rookie campaign that got off to an amazing start, winning two points races before becoming the first rookie to win the All-Star Race.

The rest of his season featured a multitude of issues for Junior and the Bud Crew, finishing off the lead lap in 15 of the season’s final 22 races alongside 4 DNFs in the same stretch.

Rounding out the roster was DEI’s first development driver, New York native Steve Park.

Growing up in New England, Park earned his stripes in the local modified scene before stepping up to the NASCAR-sanctioned Featherlite Modified Series.

Park made a good impression in the series, quickly becoming a contender and winning races. His performance caught the eye of Earnhardt Sr., who gave the 28-year-old a phone call that would change his life forever.

Thinking it was a joke by one of his friends, Park hung up the call.

Earnhardt didn’t give up that easily though, calling Park back and bringing him down to North Carolina to stay on Earnhardt’s farm. It was here that Park became accustomed to a wake-up call that included the Intimidator coming into his room and kicking his bed frame.

After working in Earnhardt’s shop for his Busch Series team for most of 1996, Park got a chance to get behind the wheel of one of Earnhardt’s cars, driving a second entry with GM Goodwrench as sponsor at Charlotte. Though it ended in a shower of sparks and bent sheet metal, Earnhardt was confident in Park taking over his main entry for 1997.

Former driver Jeff Green piloted the #3 Chevrolet to a 4th-place points finish in 1996 but failed to bring home any hardware for his efforts. With ACDelco emblazoned on the hood, Park looked to add some trophies to the DEI mantle.

The team alternated between good races and bad races through the first eight events before leading the most laps at Nashville on their way to their maiden victory in a car crew chief Tony Eury Sr. jokingly called “red-headed stepchild”.

Park and company began to gel as the summer stretch began, notching another win at Michigan after taking the lead from the dominant Mark Martin with less than 15 laps to go. Park’s bad luck at the beginning of the season prevented him from truly contending for the title with veterans Randy Lajoie and Todd Bodine.

Another convincing win at Richmond in the Red-headed Stepchild helped Park get close to Bodine in points as the season approached its conclusion, but a mediocre run at the season finale in Homestead cemented a 3rd-place points finish for the rookie.

Park got to qualify for select Winston Cup events in 1997 with DEI as well, but he failed to qualify in half of his eight attempts, only finishing above 33rd once in his four starts.

Rather than allow Park to sharpen his skills with another year in the Busch Series, Earnhardt Sr had seen enough to move Park up to the Cup Series full-time for 1998.

Piloting the #1 Pennzoil Monte Carlo, Park struggled to find his footing.

A lost ignition at Daytona spoiled his first run at the Great American Race, and a late crash derailed a solid run at Rockingham. This was made worse when Park failed to qualify the next week at Las Vegas.

Park arrived in Atlanta the next week, his hopes high after a 15th-place finish there the year before, but a gruesome practice accident left Park battered and bruised.

A broken leg, a broken collarbone, and a broken shoulder blade was the diagnosis, sidelining the rookie for several months. NASCAR legend Darrell Waltrip drove the car while Park healed, almost putting the car in victory lane at Pocono.

A healthy Park returned to the series at Indianapolis, but his absence and inexperience plagued the team throughout the rest of the season. The team never found their way into the top-10 in their final 15 races, only finishing on the lead lap twice.

Park and Pennzoil regrouped for 1999, and once again, the beginning of the season saw many trials and tribulations. Two top-20s in the first five races would normally be a signal of positive change, but they followed it up with seven-straight finishes worse than 24th.

A 42nd-place at Charlotte was misleading. Park controlled the race for 84 laps in the middle stages before getting into an accident on lap 240.

The missed opportunity galvanized the team, and it led to their best results yet.

Park and the team scored their first top-10 together at Michigan. Even though they followed that up with two 42nd-place finishes at Sonoma and Daytona, their stride wasn’t broken, scoring five straight top-20 finishes.

A 31st-place finish at Bristol was only a footnote to the team’s success throughout the second-half of 1999. They never finished outside of the top-20 again for the remainder of the season, climbing from dismal 28th at midseason to 14th in points by season’s end.

The addition of Dale Earnhardt Jr in 2000 only served to continue bolstering a team that looked formidable in the final half of the previous season.

Junior capitalized on Park’s success in DEI’s vacant Busch Series car, winning back-to-back championships in 1998 and 1999 and making select Cup starts in ’99.

While a new teammate might ruffle some drivers’ feathers, Park welcomed the younger Earnhardt with open arms as they took on a new season and a new millennium together.

2000 also brought another change for Park. His crew chief, Phillippe Lopez, was replaced by Paul Andrews on top of the Pennzoil pit box, hoping to maximize Park’s potential.

Much like the previous year, Park and the team struggled for consistency at the onset, running well one week and running poorly the next. He scored his first pole at Bristol, but after the first 12 races of the season, he only sat 17th in the standings.

After another summer slump where they couldn’t find their way into the top-10 for eight straight races, Park rolled into upstate New York for his home race at Watkins Glen.

Starting 18th, the Pennzoil Chevy made quick work of the field, getting to the lead for the first time on lap 31, and after pit stops cycled through, Park took back the lead before a caution with 20 to go setup a late-race restart with Mark Martin nipping at his heels.

The third-year driver guided the car around the road course’s grueling twists and turns, beating Martin to the line to score his first career victory.

The win was the shot the team needed to tackle the second half of 2000. Two bad runs at Michigan and Loudon were speedbumps to a remarkable late-season turnaround where Park and the team finished worse than 11th four times in the final 14 races.

At season’s end, Park came home with an 11th-place points finish, just short of receiving an invitation to NASCAR’s end-of-the-year awards banquet.

With their eyes set on 2001, Park and Andrews looked to turn themselves into contenders.

DEI rolled into Speedweeks with their eyes on the prize: The Harley J. Earl Trophy. Driving for parent team Richard Childress Racing, Earnhardt Sr. seemed to have one of the strongest cars in the field, and he wanted to use that to his race team’s benefit.

The seven-time champion broke a winless drought at the Great American Race just three years prior, so he sympathized with Waltrip, who hadn’t won a points-paying Cup Series race in his entire career spanning 15 years and 462 starts.

Leading up to the race, Earnhardt devised a plan amongst his team to help Waltrip score his first victory, convincing all three of them to work together to reach a common goal.

While that plan inevitably succeeded in Waltrip claiming his first victory, it became shrouded in tragedy as the elder Earnhardt kept to his word and backed the rest of the field up on the backstretch. While Waltrip and Junior streaked away, Earnhardt’s Chevy careened into the turn 4 wall, the impact practically killing him instantly.

DEI and its drivers rolled into Rockingham the following week with heavy hearts, even considering sitting out the race entirely to mourn their namesake.

With rain in the area, drivers were on edge and unwilling to give space from the drop of the green flag, resulting in Junior wrecking in turn 4 on the very first lap of the race in an accident that looked startlingly similar to his father’s the week before.

The race trudged on but not for much longer. The skies opened up just short of the 50-lap mark, postponing the race to Monday.

When the race resumed, it was a battle of tire management as the race went green for nearly 200 laps before Mike Skinner spun in turn 2 on lap 243.

By that point, Park found himself in the mix, even leading on a few occasions. Thanks to lessons from Dale Sr, Park kept his tires underneath him while others struggled for grip.

The final caution of the race came right after the 300-lap mark, giving way to an 85-lap battle to the finish between Park, Jeff Gordon, and defending champion Bobby Labonte.

As was the case a majority of the day, Gordon got a great launch, but his DuPont Chevy was set up for the short run, allowing Park to sneak by him with 55 laps to go.

From there, it was a matter of Park keeping his composure as Labonte began to stalk himself and Gordon. In the waning laps, Labonte made his way past Gordon and began eating into Park’s lead, getting to Park’s rear bumper coming to the white flag.

With his owner’s passing fresh in his mind, Park drove like Hell on the final lap, warding off Labonte’s efforts on his way to an emotional victory for him and everyone in the sport.

Waltrip wheeled around on the cooldown lap to give Park a high-five from their cars before Park pulled his Pennzoil machine into victory lane.

In spite of their past, Park and his crew hit the ground running at the start of the season, sitting 8th in points after the first 12 races with six top-10s and two runner-up finishes at Darlington and Texas.

Another second-place at Dover was a prelude to a string of bad runs to open the summer where Park and Andrews couldn’t finish any better than 20th, but just like every other year to this point, the team rallied after the halfway point.

Finishing sixth in Loudon, the #1 team got back in the hunt with five top-10s in the next six races, only being broken up by a 13th-place run at Pocono. In that span, they jumped from 13th in points all the way back up to 8th.

Returning to Darlington where he ran so well and led the most laps, Park entered the Southern 500 weekend with confidence. This didn’t reflect in his qualifying run when he ended up an underwhelming 34th place.

Park started a number of races for owner Ted Marsh in the Busch Series throughout 2001 to help him feel out how the tracks were racing before jumping into his Cup car on Sundays.

In all the starts he finished, Park finished in the top-10 in both the Busch Series races and the coinciding Winston Cup races, showing these extra gigs were helping his performance.

Park started 15th in the Busch Series’ return to Darlington and quickly made his way through the field before a caution fell on lap 11 for rain.

While coasting under caution, the lapped car of Larry Foyt sped underneath the lead lap cars to unlap himself. As he approached the leaders, Park’s steering wheel came completely undone, sending his car into Foyt’s path.

Foyt had nowhere to go and not enough time to stop.

He smashed into Park’s driver’s side door, sending both cars sliding toward the inside wall.

After a lengthy effort to get Park out of the car, he was evaluated and diagnosed with a concussion and a bruised brain, sidelining Park for the second time in his career.

What was initially supposed to be a four-to-six week recovery time slowly turned into missing more and more time, with Park eventually abandoning his championship pursuit.

Journeyman Kenny Wallace hopped into the #1 Pennzoil Chevy for the remainder of 2001, showing flashes of brilliance behind the wheel. He almost took Park’s car back to victory lane when the series returned to Rockingham, coming up one spot short to Joe Nemechek.

But, what if Steve Park’s steering wheel hadn’t come loose? What if he got to finish out his 2001 season without injury? Let me give you my educated guess.

Wallace finished 34th, bowing out of the race with about 100 miles to go in the Southern 500 with overheating issues. I believe his second-place run and his stint in the Busch Series race the day before would allow Steve to finish 8th with a few laps led. Not quite as competitive as in the spring, but still a solid points day.

After a 4th-place finish at Richmond in the spring, I think Park supersedes Wallace’s performance once again by coming home 6th without leading a lap, gaining no points on the drivers ahead of him in points and placing him firmly in 9th.

Dover was another track that Park was fond of, having finished 2nd there in the spring, so he outranks Wallace yet again, leading six laps and finishing a solid 3rd.

Since Kansas was a brand-new race track and didn’t have a close comparison, I’ll say Park leaves America’s Heartland with a 13th-place lead-lap finish, 

The series’ next stop was in their backyard at Charlotte where they didn’t run well with Park in the 600 or Wallace in the fall. Considering Steve’s fight to stay in the top-10 in points and their previous Charlotte performances, I think they finish 10th and lead 24 laps.

Park and the Paperclip never quite got along, so I imagine he runs 16th there before heading to Talladega. Park got caught a lap down in a caution-free affair in the spring, so I doubt that same fate befalls him here, matching Wallace’s 6th-place finish.

With five races to go, Park found himself within range of getting a top-5 points finish if he could maintain his consistency, climbing his way back up to 8th.

At a track where the team showed speed in 2000, Park and the team would bring a solid piece to the desert, leading 11 laps and finishing runner-up to Jeff Burton.

Then, the series returned to the Rock.

In reality, Kenny Wallace sat on pole and traded the lead for a large portion of the day with Joe Nemechek, with Nemechek claiming his second career win. Wallace sat on pit road in anguish after finishing 2nd in what was probably the best Cup car he’d ever driven.

Given Park’s success there earlier in the year, the 1 car would lead over 250 laps en route to a commanding victory over Nemechek, ruining Andy Petree Racing’s happy ending. This time, Park would get to cherish his victory rather than have it overshadowed by the recent passing of his car owner and mentor.

Park and the Pennzoil crew rolled back into South Beach where they showed speed the year before, setting the pole and grabbing a top-10. Despite Wallace’s efforts, I think Park takes a struggling race car and makes it better throughout the day to come home 9th.

The next week would not be as fruitful. Atlanta is a track that Park has struggled at in the past, and this race would be no different. After staying out to try to make it to the end, Park runs out of gas on the final lap in third place coming out of turn 2, falling to 13th by the time his car silently coasted across the finish line.

Going into the season finale at New Hampshire, Park sat in a tie with Dale Jarrett for fifth in points. With Jarrett taking the victory in the series’ initial trip to the Magic Mile, Park would need to put in a good performance to keep up with the 1999 champion.

Park would stay in the top-10 for a majority of the race, chasing after leader Jeff Gordon before Robby Gordon tangled with the already-crowned champion with 15 to go. Park would use a good launch on the restart to get himself into the top-5 and stay there, coming home an impressive 4th to cap off a remarkable season for DEI.

With Park finishing out the year with a 5th-place points finish, the sky could’ve been the limit heading into 2002, especially with Dale Jr’s rise in the second half of 2001.

Unfortunately, Steve’s injury at Darlington in September 2001 would further derail his career. After missing the final third of the previous season, Steve sat out the first four races of 2002 to continue healing from his injuries.

He made his return at the track that took him out of the car in Darlington, dancing a wonderful tango with the Lady in Black in qualifying to sit 4th on the grid. He surged to the lead on lap 19, but a mishap with Ricky Craven and Stacy Compton in turn 1 on lap 39 put Park behind the wall and out of contention, ending the day 39th.

While he brought the car home under power the next week at Bristol, he was involved in three separate cautions on the day before completing the race in 24th, three laps down. This became a disturbing trend moving forward.

In his first 16 races back behind the wheel, Park found himself involved in 11 accidents over that time, and when he wasn’t bringing out the yellow, he lacked the pace he once displayed with just a single top-20 finish.

Park rolled into the Brickyard in August, a track where his sponsor Pennzoil saw so much success in open wheel racing. It was there that he was able to shake the cobwebs off for a weekend and stay in the mix, finishing a satisfying 7th.

The good run failed to right the ship for the embattled Park as he continued to struggle, including a horrifying crash on the first lap at Pocono with teammate Dale Jr. Thankfully, he left that accident unscathed.

After the Southern 500 where he crashed out and finished 36th, Park’s longtime crew chief Paul Andrews was fired in favor of Steve Hmiel.

With Hmiel on top of the pit box, Steve bounced back a bit at Richmond in the fall, leading 31 laps in the middle of the race before fading to 11th by the time the checkers flew.

Three more races of negative results were balanced out by a 6th-place run at the caution-free Talladega event, which gave the team a spark for the remainder of the season.

Steve never brought out another caution for the rest of the season, and he finished every race 24th or better, including five top-20s in the final seven races.

Having missed the first few races, Park could only claw back to 33rd in points with his struggles, but there was optimism with their late-season momentum heading into 2003.

Instead of building off of the results Hmiel and Park put together at the end of 2002, Park entered the new year paired up with veteran engineer Tony Gibson. Gibson spent some time as Bill Elliott’s crew chief in 1995, but he hadn’t gotten another shot since then.

With Park ready to re-establish himself, he looked at 2003 as a way to make a statement.

Through 11 races, that didn’t happen.

Two middling results led to the team’s first top-10 of the season in the third race at Vegas, which gave way to two more consecutive top-20s, but mechanical problems led to a poor result at Bristol. Steve’s luck didn’t improve in Fort Worth, retiring after an accident.

The following week at Talladega saw a trying day for the Pennzoil crew, getting swept up into a mess not of their doing on lap 5 and plugging around with damage to a 20th-place result, four laps off the pace of winner, teammate Dale Jr.

Martinsville continued to be a thorn in Park’s side, bringing home another finish outside of the top-20 before Gibson and his driver hit on something in qualifying at Fontana.

The team tackled the large two-mile oval with a blazing lap that put them on the pole for Sunday, but on the very first lap, Park got swallowed up by the back and spit into the wall, taking the car behind the wall where he would eventually finish 40th.

Their fortunes remained unchanged the next week as Park witnessed another driver in Jerry Nadeau suffer similar injuries to his own in practice. To make matters worse, Park wrecked his car on lap 45, relegating him to 43rd place.

After his third DNF in five races, DEI made the decision to move on from Park, firing him after seven years with the team that he helped build.

At age 35 with years ahead of him as a driver, Park sat dejected and unemployed.

He didn’t languish for long. The same weekend Park was let go, Jeff Green lost his ride with Richard Childress Racing, allowing him to take Park’s ride at DEI.

Seeing an opportunity, Childress and Park sat down together and struck deal for Park to pilot the #30 AOL Chevy Monte Carlo for the remainder of 2003.

Despite the change in scenery, Park’s downward spiral continued.

Spins at the World 600, Michigan, and Sonoma were broken up by mechanical issues at Dover and Pocono, resulting in seven races straight where Park finished outside the top-25. Even a pole at the Firecracker 400 was foiled by being in one of the race’s two accidents.

Another crash in Chicago left Park 33rd in points at midseason, unable to progress from his 2002 form. Steve caught a break the next week in Loudon. Starting 34th, Park maneuvered his way through the field to come home with an 8th-place finish.

A top-15 at Indy split two bad runs at the Glen and Pocono before logging his best performance of the season at Michigan where he got the final top-5 of his Cup career.

Everything that season would be downhill from there.

The 30 team plummeted in the points.

Accidents, mechanical failures, and being plumb slow plagued the team so much that they missed the race at Talladega, Park’s first DNQ since his rookie season at Vegas.

In the season’s final 25 races, Park only finished in the top-20 six times, but he finally tackled the Paperclip, finishing on the lead lap in 12th place for a career-best finish.

After a 19th-place lead-lap result in the season finale at Homestead, Park concluded 2003 an astonishing 32nd in the final points standings.

With Busch Series hotshot Johnny Sauter looking to move up to the Cup Series, Park was left by the wayside, out of a ride in NASCAR’s top series for the start of 2004.

Park attempted one Cup race in 2004 for Jim Smith’s Ultra Motorsports, the World 600 at Charlotte, but he simply failed to find enough speed to make the event.

With another rookie in Brendan Gaughan rising up to the Cup Series, Steve saw an opportunity in Truck Series team Orleans Racing to get his career back on track.

Orleans Racing was capable of winning the Truck Series title the year before, leading the points in the closing stages of the finale before being deliberately wrecked by one of Jim Smith’s extra trucks that he entered into the event.

Through 2004, Park began to find his footing again. He produced consistent results for the team, and despite some subpar runs, the team ended the year a respectable 9th in points.

Entering 2005, Park returned to Orleans, trying to keep the team in contention and elevate his performance. At the second race of the season in Fontana, Park did just that.

Park claimed the lead with six laps to go and held on to win his lone Craftsman Truck Series race under the California twilight, becoming just the ninth driver to win a race in all three of NASCAR’s national divisions.

Steve couldn’t capitalize on the moment in the weeks to come, and the bad luck continued to snowball as it’d always done before. Steve struggled for speed throughout the season, only scoring three more top-10s before Orleans released him with two races remaining.

Ted Marsh came calling for 2006, but in their six races together, the duo couldn’t finish any higher than 30th. He also took over the #59 Truck for James Harris, scoring his final NASCAR top-10 at Mansfield.

He lost his ride with Harris at season’s end, unable to find work for 2007.

And 2008.

2009 saw Park take a one-off Trucks start at Talladega where he blew an engine with about 20 to go, but it got his name back in the minds of car owners.

With his career pretty much over, former crew chief and New England native Tommy Baldwin approached Park about racing at the July Daytona race in 2010.

Starting 39th, Park took the reigns of Baldwin’s #36 Chevrolet in a scheme honoring modified legend Richie Evans. Mostly hanging in the back, Park snaked his way past a few big incidents and stayed on the lead lap, even leading his final Cup Series race on lap 119.

After his first encounter with double-file restarts in NASCAR overtime, Park survived the final two laps to come home a strong 13th.

Later that year, he made his final Truck Series starts with Carl Hartman’s 41 truck. Park notched 2 top-20s in his three races with the team, including a lead-lap finish in his final Truck race at Phoenix.

Park’s swan song in the NASCAR national series was naturally in the Cup Series, racing at Dale Earnhardt’s best track: Talladega. Racing again for Baldwin, the effort, much like his career, was cut short to just 4 of the scheduled 188 laps.

Steve tried once more to qualify for a Cup race for Baldwin at the fall Loudon race in another tribute-themed car, but he failed to make the show.

The last time Steve Park jumped in a car for a NASCAR-sanctioned event was the Battle at the Beach during Speedweeks 2013. NASCAR created the makeshift track out of a portion on the Daytona Superstretch and its paved infield area.

Steve began the race near the back of the 33-driver field, and by the end of the carnage-filled affair, he found himself in a position to win. On the final lap, Eric Goodale gave Park a shot, shunting Park into race leader and modified legend Mike Stefanik.

Stefanik spun and crashed out while Park scooted his way past the chaos and sprinted across the finish line, taking the victory and going out on top.

For once, Steve Park got to determine when he was done. When he was finished. He finally got to go out on his own terms, something that seemed unthinkable just ten years before when he was unceremoniously booted from DEI.

There’s no doubt that Park’s career was negatively affected after the Darlington accident. Anyone with eyes can look at footage from 2001 and see how different it looks from footage of the same driver the next year.

In all seriousness, Park stepped back into the car too early without enough proper and adequate testing to see if he still had what it took to race in NASCAR’s top division.

I don’t think any driver wants an injury to force them out of the race car, and I don’t believe that Park wanted to end his career without at least seeing if he could regain his form.

Unfortunately, we knew less about the effects of repeated concussions on the brain in the early 2000s than we do in the current. Maybe with increased research in his time, Park could’ve had a more formative and substantive recovery.

Park cannot be blamed for “leaving potential on the table”, though I’ve seen people online who seem to think otherwise. His steering wheel dislodged all on its own, leaving him helpless as his car veered to its doom in the path of Larry Foyt.

Had that incident not happened, it’s impossible to tell how Park’s career turns out, but I think a top-5 finish was in the cards for 2001.

I’d like to think that he and Paul Andrews work together at DEI for years to come in the #1 car, winning races and potentially contending for titles.

All Steve Park ever wanted to do was drive for Dale Earnhardt and do a good job for the man who believed in a modified driver from Long Island.

I’d like to think he made Dale proud.