RACING'S ICON LEFT HIS MARK.

Byline: TIM HADDOCK

Ron Hornaday Jr. owes much to Dale Earnhardt. So does Michael Waltrip and Earnhardt's son, Dale Jr.

Hornaday might not be where he is today without the help of Earnhardt. It was Earnhardt who plucked Hornaday from the ranks of the Winston West Series and gave him a ride in the fledgling Truck Series. Hornaday, with Earnhardt's backing, went on to become the king of the trucks, winning two titles and more races than anybody else in the series.

It was Earnhardt who moved Hornaday up to the Busch Series, where Hornaday recorded one of the better rookie seasons in that circuit's history. He won two races and was challenging for the top rookie honors until the last weeks of the season. He finished in the top five in points and impressed one of the legends of auto racing, A.J. Foyt, who hired him to head his Winston Cup team.

Without Earnhardt, Hornaday might still be a Saturday-night daredevil, racing perhaps at the half-mile Irwindale Speedway instead of on the nation's top stock-car circuit.

Hornaday knows this. Which is probably why he won't talk about Earnhardt's death. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Waltrip, after winning the Daytona 500 on Sunday, said he couldn't wait for Earnhardt to come running into victory lane at Daytona International Speedway, grab him behind the neck and hug him. He couldn't wait for Earnhardt to say, ``Now that's what I'm talking about.'' Waltrip, who was driving a Dale Earnhardt-owned Chevy, said he and Earnhardt would talk about teaming up one day. Unfortunately, that's all they had. One day.

Earnhardt Jr. - well, is it really necessary to say what Junior owes his father? A legacy? A burden? An inheritance? A curse? Probably all of the above.

But what most race fans don't know is how much other drivers in NASCAR owe Earnhardt. Drivers like John Andretti, Kyle Petty and Kurt Busch owe much to Earnhardt.

``The thing I remember most about Dale Earnhardt - and the thing that, to me, really epitomizes him - is something that happened at Talladega my rookie season (1994),'' said Andretti, driver of the No. 43 Cheerios Dodge. ``The second race there, my team (Billy Hagan) just didn't have a lot of money. We had one good restrictor-plate engine and we broke it in practice. There was no way we were even going to make the race.

``I was walking through the garage before second-round qualifying and ran into Richard Childress. He said, 'How are things going?' and I said, 'Not so good.' I told him what was going on but didn't say much more. Even if I had thought to ask him for some help, there is no way we could have afforded anything from him.

``I found out later he told Earnhardt about it and Earnhardt had an idea. He and Richard gave one of their qualifying engines to Dave Marcis, and had Marcis move his qualifying engine to our car. The engine we got was phenomenal. We were 11th-fastest in second-round qualifying and made the race because of Dale Earnhardt and Richard Childress.

`'They never asked for anything and they never told anybody, as far as I know. Dale and Richard helped us out because we needed help. We didn't have the money to pay for it and they knew that, but they helped us out anyway. Instead of going home, we made the race.''

In one of his first Winston Cup races, Busch remembers how Earnhardt treated him. It was during qualifying at Dover Downs International Speedway in September. Busch's team was having problems getting the car started from the grid. They finally did and turned the eighth-fastest lap up to that point. They ended up qualifying 10th.

After making his qualifying run, Busch remembers two people immediately came up to greet him. The first was his crew chief. The second was Earnhardt.

``The first thing I thought was what could this be all about,'' Busch said. ``He came up to me and said, 'Son, I didn't think you were going to make that corner.' That kind of opened our relationship. We raced hard together, but after that, I could just tell he was going to be accepting of me as a driver.

``He was a wonderful, caring gentleman. The stories I've heard - he was the kind of guy who would bake you a cake on your birthday if no one else would. But on the race track, if he needed an inch, he'd take two.''

More stories about Earnhardt's generosity off the track are beginning to surface. More will follow. An intimidator on the track, Earnhardt was more often than not a hero off of it.

``When he was at the top of his game, he was amazing,'' said Petty, whose son Adam died of a similar accident last year while preparing for a NASCAR event. ``He could do things with a race car that you didn't think anybody could do. There was a time when you could see a 20-car pileup and, if just one car made it through, it was the one Earnhardt was driving.

``For a lot of fans, Dale Earnhardt was what they thought about when they thought about NASCAR racing. He could do so much and was so talented. He knew it, and he knew you knew it. That grin of his, a lot of times you wouldn't know what he was thinking, but you thought you did. And it might not mean a thing in the world, but he knew you were trying to figure it out.

``He was the last cowboy.''

Questions undoubtedly will surface about whether or not NASCAR can survive without Earnhardt. What a silly question. Of course it will survive. As long as the Hornadays and Waltrips and Andrettis and Busches learned the lessons of Earnhardt, NASCAR always will survive. As long as his words of wisdom, his subtle grins, his scruff-of-the-neck hugs and his bump-and-run tactics of racing survive, so will he. NASCAR will survive without Dale Earnhardt. It will survive.

But it will never be the same.

THIS WEEK IN RACING

NASCAR

WINSTON CUP

Dura Lube 400

Site: Rockingham, N.C.

Schedule: Saturday, qualifying (Fox Sports Net, 10:30 a.m.); Sunday, race (Ch. 11, 1 p.m.)

Track: North Carolina Speedway (tri-oval, 1.017 miles, 22 degrees banking in turns 1-2, 25 degrees in turns 3-4).

Race distance: 399.681 miles, 393 laps

Last race: Dale Earnhardt was killed on the last turn of the last lap of the Daytona 500. Michael Waltrip won the race, getting his first NASCAR victory in 463 career starts.

Last year: Bobby Labonte held off Dale Earnhardt to win.

Next race: UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400, March 4, Las Vegas.

BUSCH

Alltel 200

Site: Rockingham, N.C.

Schedule: Friday, qualifying, 1 p.m.; Saturday, race (FX, 1 p.m.)

Track: North Carolina Speedway (tri-oval, 1.017 miles, 22 degrees banking in turns 1-2, 25 degrees in turns 3-4).

Race distance: 200.349 miles, 197 laps.

Last year: Mark Martin got his series-record 41st victory, leading 152 of 197 laps.

Next race: Sam's Town 300, March 3, Las Vegas.

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo: Mourners stand inside Calvary Church in Charlotte as an honor guard perpares to usher family members from Thursday's memorial service for NASCAR racing legend Dale Earnhardt.

Box: THIS WEEK IN RACING (see text)