On Feb. 17, 2002, the sun rose over the Daytona International Speedway in anticipation of the 44th Daytona 500, a race with no shortage of storylines.
It marked the first running of the Great American Race since the untimely death of Dale Earnhardt, on the final lap of last year’s Daytona 500. On Feb. 7, officials at Daytona unveiled a statue of Earnhardt outside the racetrack, a tribute to the late seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion.
Fittingly, throughout Speedweeks, the fleet of Dale Earnhardt Inc. Chevrolets emerged as Daytona 500 favorites. Reigning 500 champion Michael Waltrip piloted his No. 15 NAPA Chevrolet to a victory in the second of two 125-mile Duels to secure the fourth spot on the starting grid. Meanwhile, Earnhardt’s son, 27-year-old Dale Earnhardt, Jr., threw his hat in the ring with a runner-up showing in the first dual race and a victory in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race the day before the 500.
In addition to DEI, another name floated around the garage area as a chief contender for the Harley J. Earl Trophy: Tony Stewart. So far in Speedweeks, Stewart’s orange No. 20 Home Depot/Joe Gibbs Racing Pontiac had been a fixture at the front of the field. Stewart took the checkered flag in the Bud Shootout exhibition and then backed that up with a second place showing in the second Daytona duel, setting him up on outside of the third row beside Earnhardt.
The field would be led to green by a duo of young Californians, each running in their first Great American Race. Jimmie Johnson, a 26-year-old rookie out of El Cajon, Calif., earned his first career pole in just his fourth career start, turning a lap at 185.831 mph in his No. 48 Lowe’s/Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. To Johnson’s outside, Kevin Harvick, the pride of Bakersfield, Calif., would begin his first Daytona 500 from the outside pole after replacing Earnhardt Sr. following the previous year’s tragedy.
The 43-driver field also included Shawna Robinson, who became just the second woman to compete in the Daytona 500, joining Janet Guthrie, who last raced in the 500 in 1980.
A packed house of over 170,000 fans watched the field take the green flag at Daytona, and it did not take long for one of the race favorites to find trouble. On lap 3, as the NBC broadcast went silent to honor Earnhardt Sr. and those who lost their lives in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Stewart slowed on the backstretch as the motor on his No. 20 Pontiac went south. This left him with no choice but to pull into the garage and withdraw from the race with a last-place finish.
About 20 laps later, Earnhardt’s day also took a turn for the worse. Running in second behind teammate Waltrip, a piece of debris punctured the right-front tire on the No. 8 Chevrolet. Earnhardt managed to keep his car off the wall and away from everyone else, but significant damage to his right-front fender led to the race’s first caution.
The No. 8 crew fixed the damage as best as it could under the yellow flag; remarkably, Earnhardt was able to find his way back into the top 10 just a handful of laps after the restart.
The race then went on a 56-lap green flag run until lap 83 when Dave Marcis, running in his final 500, stalled on the apron of turn 4.
Then, on lap 95, Earnhardt’s day went from bad to worse as his right-front tire punctured on the exit of turn 4. He drove through the front stretch grass, leaving debris on the track to bring out caution flag number three. Earnhardt went behind the wall for several laps to get repairs and was able to get back on track, but his chances of contending for the checkered flag were at an end.
As the race entered its middle stages, a new frontrunner emerged in the form of a silver bullet. Sterling Marlin, a two-time winner of the 500 in 1994 and 1995, steered his No. 40 Coors Light/Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge to the point on lap 88 and held the top spot for 73 of the next 74 laps.
Behind him, another new face entered the top 10: Ward Burton, driver of the No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge for Bill Davis Racing and older brother of fellow Cup driver Jeff Burton. Starting back in 19th place, Ward made it up to ninth place by the halfway point and stayed in striking distance as the laps counted down.
As the field completed lap 148, the NBC broadcast cut to a commercial break. About halfway through a Ford ad featuring Dale Jarrett, the feed returned to Daytona International Speedway to show the tail end of the dreaded Big One in turns 1 and 2. The accident started when Harvick threw a block on Jeff Gordon while battling for second. Harvick spun around, setting off a chain reaction that involved 18 cars. Among those caught up in the wreck were Matt Kenseth, Ricky Rudd, Bobby Labonte and polesitter Johnson.
With just six laps remaining, the field bunched back up for a restart following a spin by Robby Gordon. That is when the 44th rendition of the Great American Race got its final plot twist.
Jeff Gordon took the green flag in the lead, but he did not stay there long. While a handful of cars wrecked in the middle pack, Gordon spun off the front bumper of Marlin. Marlin then edged out Ward Burton in the race back to the ninth and final caution flag of the afternoon.
NASCAR stopped the remaining cars on the back stretch and displayed the red flag with only five laps left to clean up the racetrack and set up a green-flag finish. Parked behind the pace car, Marlin, worried about damage to his No. 40 Dodge, got out of his car to check and then pull on the right front fender. By rule, teams were — and still are — not allowed to do anything to their cars under the red flag. Therefore, NASCAR hit Marlin with a penalty, sending him to the tail of the field.
All of this set up a three-lap shootout to the checkered flag, with Ward Burton suddenly in the catbird seat as the race leader. The South Boston, Va., native led only five circuits, but he was out front when it mattered most to win the 44th Daytona 500. It was Burton’s second crown jewel in less than a year, having won the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway the previous September.
Elliott Sadler emerged from the 41st starting spot to finish second and complete a 1-2 finish of Virginia drivers. Geoff Bodine finished third, Kurt Busch fourth and Waltrip rounded out the top five. Marlin and Jeff Gordon rebounded from their late troubles to place eighth and ninth, respectively.
The rollercoaster that was the 44th Daytona 500 proved to be a fitting opener to an eventful 2002 Cup season. Fortunately for Stewart, his last-place finish turned out to not be a harbinger of things to come in 2002. Not only did he bounce back from finishing shotgun on the field at Daytona, he also went on to win three races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Richmond Raceway and Watkins Glen International on the way to capturing the first of his three Cup titles in a Hall of Fame career.
Marlin shook off his red flag gaffe in the 500 to have one of the best seasons of his Cup career. He collected two checkered flags at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Darlington. Through 25 races, Marlin had only one DNF and led the Cup standings by 91 points.
However, Marlin then had four straight finishes outside the top 20; in the last race of that stretch at Kansas Speedway, he suffered a neck injury in a lap 148 crash, ending his season. Marlin never won a race or seriously contended for a Cup again, ending his full-time Cup career in 2006 and running part time from 2007-2009.
Robinson finished 24th, 13 laps off the pace. It would be another decade before Danica Patrick became the third woman to run in the Great American Race in 2012, the first of her seven career starts in the 500.
Following his Daytona 500 win, Burton picked one more victory in 2002 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, his fifth and final career victory. But an average finish of 24.1 and nine DNFs relegated him to a 24th-place points finish in 2002. However, the victory helped cement the Burtons as one of the great racing families in NASCAR history, a legacy that is being carried on today by Ward’s son Jeb Burton and Jeff’s son Harrison Burton.
The 2002 Daytona 500 was notable for the new safety equipment and protocols fulfilling its intended purpose. It was important to NASCAR to have no injuries or deaths in the first Daytona 500 since Dale Earnhardt’s death. Whether it be the HANS device, upgraded driver seats or a mandate for all pit crew members to wear helmets, all the safety equipment and rules got put to the test and passed with flying colors.
With several noteworthy storylines and an underdog winner, the 44th Daytona 500 served as another memorable chapter in the illustrious history of the Great American Race.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 as an iRacing contributor. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.