There's nothing Ken Schrader can do to erase the image he has of seeing Dale Earnhardt dead in his car. But he has done something about how it affects him.
Unlike his fellow competitors, who didn't learn Earnhardt was dead until well after the accident on the final lap of the Daytona 500, Schrader knew how bad it was the moment he poked his head into the battered No. 3 car and saw his lifeless body.
"What I saw in the car that day, that will stay with you," Schrader said. "I saw a friend in trouble. I didn't know for certain (he was dead), but I would have bet. That sticks with you."
Schrader was running in the top 10 that day, battling a pack of cars hot on Earnhardt's bumper when The Intimidator made contact with Sterling Marlin and his car went shooting up the high banking into the Turn 4 wall.
Schrader couldn't avoid hitting Earnhardt's car, tagging him in the passenger side. After the two cars slid down the track and onto the grass, Schrader climbed from his car and rushed over to check on his friend.
"Out of compassion for his friend, he went to the car and I think maybe he saw more than what he bargained for," said Schrader's wife, Ann.
"But at the same time, he takes comfort in that one of the last people Dale might have seen and heard was Kenny, a friend who was there for him."
Schrader's next thought was to go to Michael Waltrip, who was celebrating his first win in Victory Lane, unaware of Earnhardt's death.
On his way, Schrader was stopped by a TV crew and asked about Earnhardt. The emotion in his eyes was hidden behind sunglasses, but his face was pale and his voice shaky when he lied and said he didn't know.
Schrader later learned that interview was the first real sign to many viewers at home that Earnhardt might be dead.
Then he went to Victory Lane. Hours before the race, Schrader had told Waltrip that if he won, he would go straight to Waltrip's motor home to get the celebration started.
Instead, he delivered the bad news to Waltrip, who had just won NASCAR's biggest race the first time in a car owned by Earnhardt.
"I didn't know what the final deal was, so I just told him it was big and Dale was in trouble," Schrader said. "It was Mikey's biggest moment, and you're adding news that he doesn't want. But I knew he'd want to know."
Schrader also had to tell his 11-year-old daughter, a fan of The Intimidator and friend of Earnhardt's daughter.
Schrader also had his own emotions to deal with. How would Earnhardt's death affect him? In the end, he decided it wasn't going to.
"He knows things can happen in a race car," Ann Schrader said. "Because he's a racer, he has a very realistic attitude and has been able to cope with it."
There were rumors at the next week's race that Schrader was going to quit, that what he had seen in Earnhardt's car which he won't discuss in detail was just too much to overcome.
"When I walked up to that car, I thought about a lot of things over the next couple of hours, and quitting was never on the list," he said.
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