For more than 20 years, Dale Earnhardt was one of those people. Earnhardt was the human embodiment of the essence of NASCAR racing, a sport he brought into national mainstream relevance. You had to be tough as nails to be a NASCAR driver, and Earnhardt was the toughest of them all. He was Teddy Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway, and Burt Reynolds all rolled into one, a man's man's idea of a man's man. Perhaps fittingly, and also thankfully, he remains the most recent driver to have died during a Cup Series race.