Charlotte Motor Speedway as Elsinore

This year marks the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death. And as NASCAR roars into another season, many fans will note that Thursday marks the 15th anniversary of Dale Earnhardt’s fatal crash at Daytona.

Shakespeare understood how losing a father can affect a young man who hasn’t yet reached full maturity. That, after all, is Hamlet’s story.

It’s also the story of Dale Earnhardt Jr., son of the fallen “Intimidator.” Four centuries ago, Shakespeare, himself an icon in the works, wrote about the difficulty of grieving publicly over a father who was also an iconic king, beloved by his subjects. Remarkably, the unfolding drama of Hamlet predicts essential elements of young Dale’s mourning, in the public eye, over a celebrated, larger-than-life – and, in his own way, royal – patriarch.

The unexpected, sudden loss of Hamlet’s father leaves a heavy burden on the son. The father’s ghost returns from the dead to accuse Claudius, his brother, of murdering him and commands Hamlet to kill Claudius in revenge. “The time is out of joint,” cries Hamlet. “O cursed spite / That ever I was born to set it right.” As much as Hamlet reviles Claudius, who has hastily married his mother after his father’s death, the mere thought of vengefully killing his uncle paralyzes him.

With a force comparable to the blow dealt to Hamlet, Dale Sr.’s early, unanticipated death gored the fan base of NASCAR, bequeathing the prospect of regenerating it to Dale Jr. Overnight, the son, who had looked up to his father as a model, inherited not only a world of grief, but the fans’ instant, unrealistic expectations that Jr. would now race at his father’s level. Never mind that Dale Sr.’s record – seven championships and 76 wins – was, in effect, out of reach to Dale Jr. or to anyone else.

Like Hamlet, Dale Jr. had the advantage of the people’s love, manifested in 13 straight NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver Awards. But also like Hamlet, Dale Jr. has been slow to fulfill the mandate imposed by his father’s legacy. The pressures on young Dale’s life have included a step-parent who, like Shakespeare’s hero, has caused him no little trouble in coming to terms with Sr.’s bequest. Much as Hamlet’s stepfather repulses Hamlet, Dale Sr.’s second wife, Teresa, has alienated her stepson, who bluntly told journalist Lars Anderson, “Me and Teresa don’t see eye to eye.”

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