I am not a huge NASCAR fan.

I watch a couple races a season. I check out the highlights each week. I watch the points standings. I have to keep current on the sport a little bit. I have to be able to converse intelligently with the real NASCAR afficionados around here - Norm Hagg and Dale Hubler.

My favorite driver was Dale Earnhardt. It's not like I have a giant No. 3 on the back window of my car or anything. I don't wear a black No. 3 hat. I don't own any 1/32- or 1/24-scale black No. 3 Chevrolets. No posters, mugs or T-shirts, either. But I just really liked Dale Earnhardt.

He had this reputation as the "Intimidator" because of the way he drove a race car. He bumped and scraped and drafted around the track like nobody else. It seemed as if he could squeeze his car through spaces that weren't really big enough for his car to squeeze through.

All this was possible for him, I believe, because he was driven to compete. He had to compete. The sidelines weren't an option for him.

When sportswriters asked him about safety or danger, he invariably would utter the phrase, "Hey, this is racin'," or "Hey, let's just go racin'." He didn't think about the danger. Of course, that's not unique to Earnhardt.

None of the drivers in NASCAR dwell on the danger. If they did, they wouldn't race. But Earnhardt's approach to racing was unique.

Nobody drives a race car like he did.

I got to see Earnhardt in person once in Indianapolis when NASCAR first came to town for the Brickyard 400.

One of the nice things about working for the Times-Union is that we get press passes to things like the Brickyard and the Indy 500.

I remember well the first time I spotted Earnhardt at the track. During a practice session, I was walking back to the garage area from the pits.

He was headed for the pits from the garage area. We passed each other between the bleachers.

Fans were yelling and holding out stuff for him to autograph.

He stopped to sign a couple things. I stopped to watch him and snap a couple photos.

I was taken by how slight of build he was. When you saw him on television or on the race track, he seemed like a much larger person.

Maybe it was just the persona, the aura around him.

But seeing him in person, it was apparent that he was really not at all intimidating as a person. He seemed polite, reserved.

As he finished signing, he turned and seemed to look my way. It was hard to tell through those trademark Gargoyle wraparound sunglasses, but I took a chance that he was looking at me and said, "Hey, good luck out there."

He touched the brim of his cap with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. He paused, cracked an almost imperceptible smile, then turned away and headed off for the pits without saying a word.

The dynamics of a meeting like that are so lopsided. I know he didn't remember that moment for more than a few seconds.

I will remember it for a lifetime.

What that chance meeting - if you will allow me the liberty of calling it a meeting - showed me was that despite his reputation as an intimidating NASCAR driver, he had a quiet side - a reflective side.

I could see him as a man - a son, a husband, a father - instead of just an Intimidator.

Before that day I was a Bill Elliott fan. I liked Fords better than Chevys and I still do. But after that day, I was an Earnhardt fan.

When I watch my traditional few races this NASCAR season I'm truly going to miss the black No. 3.

NASCAR will survive, but what happened in the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 has changed racing forever. [[In-content Ad]]