Gone, but not forgotten

Wednesday, March 21, 2001 | 10:24 a.m.

Just how popular was Dale Earnhardt?

One month after his death, the late NASCAR driver has nearly 10 times as many items as God on the Internet auction site e-Bay.

Elvis Presley, Michael Jordan, Jeff Gordon and The Beatles combined can't match The Intimidator in terms of popularity on the auction site. As of Tuesday afternoon, there were 8,887 Elvis-related items for sale on eBay compared to more than 31,000 for Earnhardt.

The Beatles ran a distant third with 8,177 while Gordon and Jordan were represented by 6,244 and 4,812 items, respectively.

A search for "God" revealed 3,332 items up for auction.

The number of Earnhardt items for sale doesn't come as a surprise to a number of local retailers who deal in auto racing merchandise.

"He was a pretty special driver," said Heather Linham, manager of merchandise for Finish Line Events, which handles souvenir sales at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

"(Sales) are pretty much tapering off right now but we sold a good amount (of Earnhardt merchandise) the first week (after his death)."

LVMS general manager Chris Powell said the speedway's gift shop sold "well into the tens of thousands of dollars" in Earnhardt merchandise in the four days following his death on Feb. 18. The proceeds from all Earnhardt-related sales during those four days were donated to Speedway Children's Charities.

HobbyTown USA, a retail store on West Sahara Avenue, sold out all of its Earnhardt merchandise within 20 minutes on the day following the seven-time Winston Cup champion's death.

"When we opened the day after his death, we had a line of people waiting outside and all of our Dale Earnhardt stuff -- all of it -- was gone in less than 20 minutes," said HobbyTown USA salesman Michael Gagliano. "We have nothing in the store right now."

Gagliano said the store has had difficulty restocking its supply of Earnhardt collectibles.

"We tried to order some more stuff but we can't buy it anymore because the prices got hiked up so high that it's too expensive now," he said.

Fans of The Intimidator still can purchase memorabilia through e-Bay -- if they are wiling to pay a premium. Die-cast models of Earnhardt's famous black No. 3 Chevy that sold for $5-$10 in discount stores prior to his death are going for $10-$20 on the auction site.

For the hardcore Earnhardt fans, an authentic race car that he drove in several races has received a bid of $90,100 -- although the price set by the seller has not yet been met.

Prices on Earnhardt collectibles only figure to go up over time because Action Performance, one of the companies that sell licensed Earnhardt die-cast cars, has indicated it temporarily has ceased production of its Earnhardt merchandise.

According to industry reports, Earnhardt accounted for $200 million annually in retail sales of NASCAR merchandise.