Considered one of the best NASCAR drivers of all time, Earnhardt won a total of 76 races over the course of his career, including one Daytona 500 victory in 1998.

While driving in the 2001 Daytona 500, Earnhardt died of basilar skull fracture in a last-lap crash at Daytona International Speedway on February 18, 2001.

In 1983, Earnhardt rebounded and won his first of 12 Twin 125 Daytona 500 qualifying races.

Near the end of the Daytona 500, he had a four-second lead when the final caution flag came out with a handful of laps to go.

The No. 3 Goodwrench Chevy team took the flat tire that cost them the win and hung it on the shop wall as a reminder of how close they'd come to winning the Daytona 500.

Earnhardt once again came close to a win at the Daytona 500, and dominated Speedweeks before finishing second to Dale Jarrett on a last-lap pass.

Earnhardt started off the 1995 season by finishing second in the Daytona 500 to Sterling Marlin.

1996 for Earnhardt started just as it had done in 1993 – he dominated Speedweeks only to finish second in the Daytona 500 to Dale Jarrett for a second time.

Once again in the hunt for the Daytona 500 with 10 laps to go, Earnhardt was taken out of contention by a late crash which sent his car upside down on the backstretch.

1998 saw Earnhardt win the Daytona 500 after not winning in the previous 19 attempts.

The Daytona 500 is ours.

In the weeks before the annual Daytona 500, Earnhardt elected not to attend the annual fan and media preview event, drawing vocal criticism from fellow driver Jimmy Spencer.

At the 2001 Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 18, 2001, Earnhardt was involved in a car accident after the final lap, in which Earnhardt's car was pushed into the wall nose-first by Ken Schrader's car at an estimated speed of.

This led to an emotional celebration on the infield with driver Michael Waltrip ( who finished in second place ), whose victory at the Daytona 500 was vastly overshadowed.

Their finishing order was the reverse of the Daytona 500 finish order.

* Earnhardt Jr. later went on to win the 2004 Daytona 500, three years after his father's death and six years to the day after his father won the 1998 Daytona 500.

* Every three years since Earnhardt's death, someone associated with Earnhardt has won the Daytona 500 ( his son Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in 2004, Earnhardt's replacement Cup driver Kevin Harvick in 2007, and Earnhardt Ganassi's Jamie McMurray in 2010.

Category: Daytona 500 winners

* 1959 – Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500.

* 2001 – Seven-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt dies in an accident during the Daytona 500.

" The King ", as he is nicknamed, is most well known for winning the NASCAR Championship seven times ( Dale Earnhardt is the only other driver to accomplish this feat ), winning a record 200 races during his career, winning the Daytona 500 a record seven times, and winning a record 27 races ( ten of them consecutively ) in the 1967 season alone.

The annual national championship for Club Racing is called the SCCA National Championship Runoffs and has been held at Riverside International Raceway ( 1964, 1966, 1968 ), Daytona International Speedway ( 1965, 1967, 1969 ), Road Atlanta ( 1970 – 1993 ), Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course ( 1994 – 2005 ), and Heartland Park Topeka ( 2006 – 2008 ).

The most famous event in the series is the Daytona 500, an annual race at Daytona Beach, Florida.

The most famous might well be Mario Andretti, who is the only driver ever to win the Indianapolis 500 ( 1969 ), NASCAR's Daytona 500 ( 1967 ), and the Formula One World Championship ( 1978 ).

* The Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls, now Bethune-Cookman University, is founded.

The Daytona 500 is a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series motor race held annually at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.

The winner of the Daytona 500 is presented with the Harley J. Earl Trophy in Victory Lane, and the winning car is displayed, in race-winning condition, for one year at Daytona 500 Experience, a museum and gallery adjacent to Daytona International Speedway.

The race is the direct successor of shorter races held on Daytona Beach.

By 1961, it began to be referred to as the " Daytona 500 ", by which it is still commonly known.

Daytona International Speedway is long and a 500-mile race requires 200 laps to complete.

The qualifying procedure is unique for the Daytona 500.

For NASCAR Grand National winners at Daytona from 1949 – 1958, see Daytona Beach & Road Course. Mario Andretti, born in Italy, is the only driver to win the race not from the United States.

Hurricane Dora as seen on Daytona Beach WSR-57 radar in September 1964. Jacksonville has suffered less damage from hurricanes than most other east coast cities, although the threat does exist for a direct hit by a major hurricane.

The most famous and numerous of these were the official works Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupes.

Through most of 1961, Ulmann was listed as the promoter of the USGP, and contacted organizers in Miami and Bill France of the Daytona International Speedway but was unable to reach agreements.

Probably the most famous Paige was the 1922 to 1926 Daytona, a sporting 3-seat roadster with a 6-liter engine.

It has seen a considerable amount of success, the most prominent of which being the 2008 and 2010 24 Hours of Daytona GT-class wins campaigned by SpeedSource Race Engineering.

Sega struck back that same year with Daytona USA, one of the first video games to feature filtered, texture-mapped polygons, giving it the most detailed graphics yet seen in a video game up until that time.

Aeronautical science ( flight training ) and aerospace engineering are the two most popular degrees at the Daytona Beach campus.

Aeronautical science ( flight training ) and aerospace engineering are the two most popular degrees at the Daytona Beach campus.

Embry-Riddle's Daytona Beach campus has one of the most extensive Reserve Officers ' Training Corps ( ROTC ) programs in the United States and the nation's largest Air Force ROTC program.

Often referred to as Sega's answer to Shigeru Miyamoto, he has been responsible for the creation of many of Sega's most important arcade games, including Hang-On, Space Harrier, Out Run, After Burner, and pioneering 3D games such as Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighter, Daytona USA, and Virtua Cop, as well as the Shenmue series of open world adventure games for the Dreamcast.

On qualifying day, Davey signalled that he was in Winston Cup to stay when he qualified an unmarked, but Texaco-Havoline painted # 28 Thunderbird second for the 1987 Daytona 500, becoming the first rookie ever to start on the front row for NASCAR's most prestigious event.

1993 was arguably his most successful season despite two major accidents at Daytona and Talladega in which his car went airborne and flipped several times.

Despite Rusty's lack of open-wheel racing experience, his assignments began with the IndyCar Series and included the Indianapolis 500 ( in a perhaps forgivable lapse, he described a thrilling battle on the last lap as " The most exciting Daytona 500 ever !").

Since opening in 1959, it has been the home of the Daytona 500, the most prestigious race in NASCAR.

The season opener, Daytona 500, is NASCAR's most prestigious single event.

Talladega is most known for its steep banking and the unique location of the start / finish line-which is closer to turn one than at Daytona.

At Daytona and Talladega, most races are marred by at least one multi-car crash as cars rarely become separated.

This term is most often used to describe the shape of many automobile racetracks, including: Calder Park Thunderdome, Daytona International Speedway, Kansas Speedway, Kentucky Speedway, Nazareth Speedway, Pikes Peak International Raceway, Pocono Raceway, Sanair Super Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway, and Walt Disney World Speedway.

They are considered three of the most challenging endurance races over the decades: the 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring, and 24 Hours of Le Mans.

This resulted in some criticism because teams had to travel cross-country for the second race as most spend two weeks in Daytona and are based in the Charlotte, North Carolina area.