In a Post-9/11 World, NASCAR Was Ready to Turn the Wheels

Where were you when the world stopped turning? That September day? – Alan Jackson, Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)

Sept. 11, 2001.

The NASCAR Cup Series had just wrapped up its weekend at Richmond Raceway on Sept. 8, a race in which Ricky Rudd conquered in one last stand to try and prevent Jeff Gordon from winning his fourth Cup title with only 10 races remaining.

David Hoots, the longtime Cup Series race director, remained in Richmond, Va., to work on the NASCAR rulebook with other competition personnel and NASCAR leadership, including the lower-series race directors and Jerry Cook, the rulebook administrator.

On that fateful Tuesday morning (Sept. 11), Hoots stood up from his place at the table to take a phone call. What he heard next sparked confusion, which quickly gave way to uncertainty and shock.

“I get a phone call from one of our people out broadcasting in Charlotte,” Hoots told Frontstretch. “‘Are you looking at the news? No, we’re all kind of in here working. You need to get to a television.’ So I told them we just got a call saying we need to look at the television. A plane has just flown into a building in New York City. She didn’t really elaborate other than she said this is what had happened.”

At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. By the time Hoots and his colleagues gathered around a TV in their hotel, United Airlines Flight 175 had flown into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.

A third plane struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., at 9:37 a.m., while a fourth crashed into a field in Shanksville following the courageous efforts of the passengers to overthrow the plane’s hijackers. But within an hour, the stark reality settled in: America was under attack.

Allen Bestwick, who was the lap-by-lap broadcaster for Cup races on NBC and TNT at the time, was sitting at a Ford dealership while his car was being serviced.

“The Today Show was on the television,” Bestwick told Frontstretch. “There were the burning Twin Towers. You’re just sitting there watching all of this unfold and listening to the reporting, and you’re just kind of stunned the farther into the story that they got. A very ordinary day turned very extraordinary very quickly.”

As Americans kept their eyes fixed on their TV screens across the nation, air traffic rapidly came to a screeching halt. By that afternoon, birds were the only things taking to the skies in America.

On what many describe as the perfect weather day, the nation quickly fell under the clouds of terror and tragedy. A total of 2,977 victims lost their lives, marking one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in history.

With a nation shaken to its core, questions began to persist regarding the safety of loved ones, the fear of another attack, and the future of America.

As flights were canceled, sports and entertainment events were, too. A half-dozen teams were taking part in a scheduled two-day test at Kansas Speedway when the attacks occurred, leading to the cancellation of the second day of testing. However, with flights grounded, teams had to make alternative arrangements to get home.

NASCAR was scheduled to head up north to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for that weekend’s races. Initially, despite the shock and heartbreak that filled the minds and hearts of series officials, work continued as Hoots and his colleagues planned their next steps.

“What do you do,” Hoots said. “There is no thought of ‘What is the next step?’ At this point, you’re trying to figure out, ‘What are we going to do with New Hampshire?'” At this point, midday Wednesday, New Hampshire is still going to be raced. We haven’t postponed it, we definitely haven’t cancelled it, we don’t know. We don’t know what the rest of the world is doing. Now, it’s an attack from terrorists. Are they going to try to hit anything else?”

Despite the uncertainty, Hoots and a few other NASCAR personnel headed to New Hampshire. After an overnight stop in the Pocono Mountains, Hoots was at a Wendy’s less than an hour from the track when he received word that the race was postponed.

With New Hampshire’s postponement, NASCAR president Mike Helton gave Dennis McGlynn, then the president of Dover Motor Speedway, the call that they were up to bat.

Fears of another attack persisted, but NASCAR worked tirelessly with the FAA, both the national and local governments and law enforcement to ensure a safe return to the track. Still, the airport standstill cast a shadow over travel, forcing some to take unique measures to get to Dover.

“I took a train to Dover,” Bestwick recalled. “I took an Amtrak to Wilmington, Delaware because we just didn’t know what the airport thing was going to be like and what the security thing was going to be like.”

As an employee of NBC at that time, Bestwick, like many, held direct and indirect ties to New York City that day. A son of a 28-year military veteran and native of Newport, RI., which is just over three hours from The Big Apple, Bestwick knew of colleagues who had family working at the World Trade Center, including a producer whose father was an executive at one of the companies at the Twin Towers. Fortunately, he had a meeting outside of the offices that day.

“Life was not normal for these people,” Bestwick said. “Second of all, you’re knowing, but you’re adjusting, I mean the security. What was security going to be like at the racetrack? We’re going to have a gathering of over 100,000 people. Is it safe to do that? What are the precautions?”

Even amid the abnormal situation and natural questions, Bestwick pointed to resolve as a key ingredient in NASCAR’s return.

“There was a determination on everybody’s part, and we probably picked this attitude up from NASCAR’s leadership and NBC’s leadership, but there was a determination that, ‘Hey, the country needs this. We’re going to show these people that we’re going to do what we do, and they’re not going to stop us,'” Bestwick said. “And people needed to see that. They needed to see that we were still living in the land of the free and going to do the things we love doing in a responsible way, but we were going to carry on. I think there was a great sense of pride in being a part of that.”

With little time to process what had occurred and an army of people supporting the effort, NASCAR’s new mission was to get the wheels turning again. And few could argue against Dover being the perfect place to return.

The one-mile track lies just five miles south of Dover Air Force Base, home to the 436th Airlift Wing (known as the Eagle Wing) and the 512th Airlift Wing (Liberty Wing), as well as the military’s largest mortuary for the transfer of fallen soldiers. The base had also served as a landing spot for many NASCAR teams when they flew to the track. Its close proximity certainly didn’t quench the tension, but it did provide a sense of comfort.

According to Bill Armour, a longtime motorsports personality and former media relations representative, the race nearly didn’t happen. When Homeland Security and the FBI conducted a walk-through of the track to ensure safety and mitigate risks, they found a fairly critical issue with the event setup.

“[The garages] at the time didn’t have underground fuel reservoirs,” Armour said. “They had to bring a tanker in and park it there so that people could load up their gas cans. The story I was told was that [Homeland Security and the FBI] said, ‘Well, we’re not having this race. You’ve got that kind of explosive component right here beside your garage stalls, there’s no way we’re having this race.'”

Nevertheless, with an increased security presence and added safety precautions, the race went on.

Kyle Petty was one of the drivers who participated in the race that weekend, adding that its location aligned with the mission.

“It was only fitting that it be Dover,” Petty told Frontstretch. “Dover, the military presence there, what Dover means to the military, to the servicemen there and all over the world – it was only fitting that we go to a place that had that type of presence.”

It’s now Sunday, Sept. 23, 12 days after the attacks.

Bobby Labonte leads the drivers and team members in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Lee Greenwood brings a tear-jerking rendition of “God Bless America.” And before the engines roar, grandstands are packed with 140,000 people, wearing red, white and blue and waving small American flags, chanting “USA!”

The race featured the largest gathering of Americans in one place since 9/11. For Petty, once the green flag dropped, it was back to business to try to deliver Americans a sense of normalcy.

“There is nothing,” Petty said when asked if he remembers anything that stood out from the race. “Once they drop the green flag, you don’t see anything […] your head goes right back to being a competitor. Seeing pictures of that day, seeing the cars that showed up, the drivers, the hats, the fans, I have never seen so much red, white and blue in one place.”

That sense of normalcy was similar to what Bestwick felt upon returning to the broadcast booth, but the pride that day perhaps outweighed that of any other event.

“Part of what stood out was how normal it was doing what we did,” Bestwick said. “Part of it was how abnormal it was. But a sense of pride, American pride. My dad was in the military for 28 years … I just remember feeling a great sense of American pride. 100,000 people turned out there not to just have a good time, but to show these who meant us harm that they weren’t going to stop us. All the little American flags in the stands … I just remember a real sense of pride and a unity of purpose that day that felt really good.”

With red, white and blue paint schemes throughout the field, 43 drivers demonstrated what they do best. And in the end, the winner tied the knot on an emotional, surreal day — not just for NASCAR, but for America as a whole.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. led 193 laps to capture his fourth career win, but ultimately, 140,00 fans and everyone who tuned in won that day. As Earnhardt Jr. crossed the line Bestwick’s call still reverberates today when he said, “The American and checkered flags out at Dover, Earnhardt Jr. wins!”

For the sport, Earnhardt Jr.’s win was sentimental in more ways than one. Just seven months prior, the then-26-year-old had lost his father, Dale Earnhardt, to an accident at the Daytona 500.

“It just added to the feel-good moment,” Bestwick said. “In some ways, whoever won the race, to see those little American flags waving, but for it to be the guy who quickly became the sport’s most popular driver and that everyone’s heart was still broken for after Daytona, that was part of the healing process. This was part of healing for America.”

When the sun set over Dover at the end of that day, NASCAR had accomplished a pivotal moment for many people. Americans came together, standing united, aching for those we had lost, but determined to show the attackers that they were no match for this great nation.

“We felt like we had been done wrong,” Hoots said. “And we didn’t have enough knowledge of where it came from, who did it, or the whys. After a week and a half, everybody was marching to the same tune, which was extremely refreshing.”

“If you worked in the industry, or even if you just viewed it from afar, it was part of the process of restarting life after a society-altering event,” Bestwick said. “It was part of the process of restarting life, and that process was really important for America and the world. The only thing I can even come close to comparing it to was how important it was for the resumption of normalcy after COVID when the world shut down. This was the process of bringing normalcy back to what we do and saying, ‘Hey, it’s going to be OK, and let’s show them it’s OK.”

Today, people are still affected by the events of America’s darkest hour. Over 9,000 people have succumbed to 9/11-related illnesses, and families continue to live with the reality that they lost a loved one on that day.

However, in the midst of chaos and tragedy, a country, one nation under God, banded together to exhibit the American spirit of patriotism, courage and freedom, reminders that we desperately need today. Countless heroes, from first responders to flight passengers, sacrificed their all out of a love for one another and our nation.

“I don’t think we saw the greater importance of the day,” Petty said. “When things happen, and life goes on and events happen, you don’t realize that in that moment, it’s something special. You don’t realize that in that moment, you’re going to look back on it in 25 years and say ‘Wow!’ What you look at in that moment is, this is the first step back towards some type of normalcy. The world is never going to be the same again as we knew it before 9/11. What you feared, what you loved, what you cared about, it changed.”