No one knew that February day would be the last one of Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s life. He was racing at Daytona International Speedway and was on the last lap. He made contact with another car and both vehicles hit the concrete wall. To stop suddenly at a high rate of speed is often disastrous and sometimes deadly. Earnhardt Sr. was going 150 miles an hour when he hit the wall at the angle that he did. The result was blunt force trauma to his head, which is what killed him, according to the autopsy result. Fellow racer Ken Schrader was the first to get to him and realized he was dead, per ESPN. He had a host of other injuries, including fractures to his ribs and left ankle, but he was dead instantly from the damage to his head, which included a ring fracture of the base of his skull, via Autopsy Files.
There was some initial confusion about what had happened with the crash. Some thought that Earnhardt had altered his seat belt before the race and that had played a part in his death. Some speculated that the belt had broken, which but Tommy Propst, who took part in the futile effort to save the racing legend, was adamant that the seat belt was intact, via the LA Times. It was a truly sad day, one that would be etched in the minds of the people that saw it, but there would be something good that came of it.
