Death of Dale Earnhardt
On February 18, 2001, NASCAR driver and long-time friend of Hinton, Dale Earnhardt, was killed on the final turn of the Daytona 500. Hinton and the Sentinel suspected that, like Kenny Irwin and Adam Petty, Earnhardt's cause of death had been basilar skull fracture (Hinton had recently published a three-part series on the subject of NASCAR safety) and claimed that under Florida law, the state was legally required to turn over Earnhardt's autopsy photographs. Teresa Earnhardt and others claimed the newspaper could not have access to the photographs, leading to a First Amendment legal battle which was finally concluded by an official NASCAR report on Earnhardt's death.
Read more about this topic: Ed Hinton
Famous quotes containing the words death and/or dale:
“It is better to sit down than to stand, it is better to lie down than to sit, but death is the best of all.”
—Indian proverb, quoted in Sébastien-roch Nicolas de Chamfort, Maxims and Considerations, vol. 1, no. 155 (1796, trans. 1926)
“Think of the life of the working woman as the decathlon. If you even finish it’s a miracle.”
—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)