SportsCentury Greatest Athletes: Dale Earnhardt. Out today. (****4/10)
ESPN has a series called SportsCentury, that focuses on the greatest games, coaches, teams and athletes in history. The program ended in August of 2006, and featured some of the greatest who ever played any game. And while most of these programs revolved around baseball, football, basketball and Olympic athletes, a few dealt with auto racing. In SportsCentury’s countdown of the top 100 athletes in history, there were three auto racers - A.J. Foyt, Richard Petty, and Mario Andretti. On the program, there were far more. And today, July 29th, ESPN is releasing a substantial number of NASCAR-themed DVDs through Alliance Films.
One of those DVDs is SportsCentury Greatest Athletes: Dale Earnhardt. Perhaps the most revered driver in NASCAR history, who died tragically at Daytona in 2001. And while the 45-minute program is interesting, and informative, it’s fairly pointless. The reason for that is that the same day Alliance Films and ESPN are releasing 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story on DVD as well. It’s a made-for-TV biopic of Earnhardt, and it comes with a second disc jammed with special features. Earnhardt’s races. Interviews with the man. A documentary about his life. And of course the feature film itself. The SportsCentury DVD is interesting, but all that information and much, much more is available on 3. I would pick that one up instead.