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NOTE: In response to the death of popular NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, we are providing these IU faculty who have relevant insights on what his loss means to fans, business interests and the sport of auto racing. Sources may be contacted directly. If you need further assistance, contact George Vlahakis or Richard Doty at 812-855-3911 or by e-mail at gvlahaki@indiana.edu or rgdoty@indiana.edu
The popularity of Dale Earnhardt makes his death that much harder for fans to accept, said IU associate professor of psychology Edward Hirt. "Because Earnhardt was so well known and a leader in NASCAR, his loss to thousands of fans is like
losing a member of the family," explained Hirt, whose research relates fan self-esteem to winning and losing. "Because of his stature in the sport, he was not just another driver but more like a Michael Jordan
to basketball or Tiger Woods to golf. Now, every time in the next few weeks that there is a Winston Cup race, Earnhardt fans will be reminded of his death and wonder how he would have finished in that race." It remains to be seen whether Earnhardt's fans will now identify with his son, Dale Jr., also one of the
top drivers on the NASCAR circuit, or lose interest in the sport of stock car racing, Hirt said. "What will make his death hard to accept is that many fans will think it didn't have to happen because the
race was almost over and he was protecting his teammates rather than trying to win. They will say that if he had been trying to win instead of protecting his team, he would be alive, or in another quarter of a lap
the race would have ended and the crash would not have occurred," he said. Hirt can be reached at 812-855-4815 or ehirt@indiana.edu
How will marketing efforts associated with NASCAR be affected by the death of arguably the sport's most popular driver? Not much over the long term, said H. Shankar Krishnan, associate professor of marketing in IU's Kelley School of Business. Krishnan, who studies brand-positioning and the effect of memory on advertising, said that eventually
people will separate the tragedy from other, warmer feelings they have about the race in general. He cited the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta in 1996 and the terrorist attack at the 1972 Olympics in Munich as
examples of how other tragedies did not overshadow their events' legacies. Companies such as automakers Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford and Pontiac, which use the Daytona 500 to
position their products, recognize this and will continue to find stock car racing to be an effective marketing tool, he said. "In the short term, there is a lot of news about the negative event, which overshadows the sporting event.
So in the short term, Dodge and other major sponsors probably will step back and be careful about putting out their promotional efforts, and not be too aggressive about them. But over the long haul, people realize there are risks to these kinds of events, and it's certainly a tragedy, but they learn to disassociate the two. In the larger context of affecting a lot of people, the event takes a separate stage," he said. Krishnan can be reached at 812-855-1210 or at skrishna@indiana.edu
The loss of a star of Earnhardt's magnitude is even greater than the loss of a major player in a team sport, said Timothy T. Baldwin, co-director of the Sports and Entertainment Academy in IU's Kelley School of Business. "So many fans connect with the sport, not via the team or simply through racing, but because they are '3
car' fans, they're Earnhardt fans," said Baldwin, also a professor of business administration who studies organizational change. "Given his history, that is just a devastating blow for the sport on its biggest day,
with all the national exposure, to highlight the risk and lose its most marquee guy." Baldwin does not think that Earnhardt's death -- the third fatal crash of a driver in the last year -- will kill
the sport, but he believes that it will severely affect fan interest. "People understand that you can get killed doing this, but Earnhardt was not just any driver. He was arguably the most successful driver they
ever had," Baldwin said. "That's not going to be an easy transition for folks to start cheering for another car now that Dale is gone." To many fans, Earnhardt was the epitome of what the sport always stood for. "He represented certain
roots of the sport. He had a reputation as the 'Intimidator' that a lot of fans associated with, and he was something of an 'anti-new NASCAR' hero," Baldwin said. In order to maintain its tremendous fan interest, he believes, NASCAR will now have to take a serious
look at enhancing safety for its drivers. "When a guy gets a concussion or breaks a leg, people can roll with that. But when you start losing drivers of Earnhardt's magnitude, they have to be able to say this is
as safe as it can possibly be," he said. Baldwin can be reached at 812-855-2770, through his secretary at 812-855-0221 or at
baldwint@indiana.edu
Race fans grieving for Dale Earnhardt share a common bond, according to Kathleen Gilbert, associate professor in the Department of Applied Health Science, who has nearly 20 years of experience in researching grief, loss and bereavement. "The unfortunate death of Earnhardt creates the opportunity for his numerous fans to feel emotionally
engaged to other people with a shared sense of focus over the loss," Gilbert said. "Celebrity grief" in the case of Earnhardt and others like Princess Diana dissipates faster than loss
attached directly to family members, she added, but that doesn't make it any easier right after the tragedy. "We tend to personalize our relationships with celebrities, perhaps because they come into our homes
through television and become part of our lives." She said fans realize that these drivers take risks every time they race, but sometimes take one too many
chances. Gilbert can be reached at 812-332-3404 or gilbertk@indiana.edu