If Todd Farver was a full-time employee rather than a full-time student, he would have spent yesterday in Charlotte, NC. trying to get into Dale Earnhardt’s memorial service.And if Farver’s pseudo-boss would have objected to his skipping work, Farver would have told him, “hey, fuck you buddy.”Farver is a Dale Earnhardt fan.He watched yesterday’s televised service. And taped it.Farver, sophomore in horticulture, is a member of Club E, the official Dale Earnhardt fan club, and has three Earnhardt T-shirts that are issued to members only.”I’ve got six or seven more [department store purchased T-shirts],” Farver said, adding, “That still fit me.”And then there are the stock cars that are one-sixteenth the size of the actual No. 3. “I have about four of those,” Farver said. The cars are very detailed, he said. Each one costs $40. Neal Fitzgerald owns one too. He got his when his dad came back from Daytona and The Race one year.Fitzgerald, junior in horticulture, did not watch NASCAR until about five years ago. When he finally flipped it on, he could not peel his eyes away from the black car that took a lot of chances.”Earnhardt was the one that got me watching,” Fitzgerald said.He liked how Earnhardt would start in the back — “he couldn’t race by himself” Fitzgerald said of Earnhardt’s qualifying times — and trade-paint his way to the front.Sunday, after Farver and Fitzgerald heard the news, they took to the bottle until three in the morning. Then they asked each other “why” for another hour.”Monday was tough on us,” Farver said.They both admitted it didn’t look that bad on television.Greg Lambke, from Oswego, Ill., was about 100 yards from the final turn at Daytona Sunday. When Earnhardt hit the wall at 180 mph. “I was as close as anybody,” the 49-year-old home repair business owner said.”What they saw on TV didn’t reflect what happened,” Lambke said. “It hit the wall and then the whole car jumped up in the air.”Earnhardt was in third place when he was bumped from behind by Sterling Marlin.Earnhardt had spent the last laps trying to block every attempt Marlin made at a pass.Normally, “The Intimidator” would have gone for the win himself, but on this day he fended off Marlin so his teammate Michael Waltrip could win his first race in 463 attempts.And so his son Dale Jr. could finish second.Earnhardt won 76 times, collected seven Winston Cup Championships and his only Daytona 500 win came in 1998 after eluding him for 19 years.Lambke has been to Daytona six times. Because of the 600-plus horsepower that each of the 43 stock cars put out, discussing Kantian ethics is not an option when the cars scream by.But “we heard the hit,” Lambke said. He also said he saw a driver (the name escapes him) walk up to Earnhardt’s car after the race, peek his head in and slowly walk away.At that point Lambke said “this is bad” to the guy sitting next to him that he met that afternoon.Later, in the parking lot after the race, Lambke heard the news. “It didn’t surprise me at all,” he said.It shocked Fitzgerald and Farver.”People laugh at me when I say ‘it hurts,'” Farver said. “He was a legend and now he’s gone.”Some people understand his pain.Farver said his ex-girlfriend called after the race to make sure he was OK. And his brother called and told him, “don’t do anything stupid.”The appeal of watching is also gone for the time being.Fitzgerald and his father had planned to go to the Kansas 400 this year in Kansas City. “Dad doesn’t want to go now,” Fitzgerald said.Both of them think no one should shoulder the blame. “Dale was racing like Dale,” Farver said. “Yeah,” Fitzgerald echoes. They exchange nods and let their thoughts consume them once more.”You know, it’s kind of good to talk about,” Farver said.Paul Kix is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Hubbard.