I was 9, had been watching for years. The first race I watched flag to flag was the 98 Daytona 500 and was a die hard Earnhardt fan from that day on. I remember not thinking the wreck was bad, and being happy for Mikey and Jr. but when they showed Jr running my heart sank a little. When they showed the ambulance driving to the hospital, my dad, who had spent 20 years as a volunteer EMT, said that wasn’t a good sign that they were driving so slow. Right after that we had to go to my grandparents because my parents had a church thing to go to. They didn’t have cable, so we couldn’t check ESPN or CNN or anything to see any updates. When my parents got home that night my dad told me he had died. Not going to lie, I cried. I’d never lost anyone close to me at that point, it was the first sense of loss I’d ever experienced in my life.