Black Sunday lives. It hangs over the Daytona International Speedway and its famous 500, the place and race in which the sport's greatest driver died.

Earnhardt died. Even by the rules of this game, it's hard to believe.

Imagine Muhammad Ali being killed in the ring. Imagine Joe Montana breaking his neck and dying at the Super Bowl.

Imagine the outcry.

Then there's NASCAR.

``He died doing what he loved to do,'' Winston Cup driver Mike Wallace said. Earnhardt was at his bumping, grinding, fist-shaking best to the very end. Yes, maybe he wanted to go out this way.

But don't you wish he was around to answer that question?

IT'S A QUESTION officials with NASCAR should ask themselves. Not that they will. There are races to run.

They didn't ask enough questions after three drivers died on tracks last year, including Adam Petty, the fourth generation of racing royalty.

Instead, NASCAR concerned itself more with the new TV deal with Fox and tweaking rules to make the racing more exciting. NASCAR wanted the eyes of America all over it.

Mission accomplished.

Now, about the new rules. One that doesn't exist would make mandatory the use of a Head and Neck Support (HANS) system, a U-shaped device designed to keep a driver's head from snapping forward in crashes like those that killed Petty, Kenny Irwin and Tony Roper last year and Earnhardt on Sunday.

A half-dozen drivers wore the HANS during Sunday's 500. Earnhardt didn't. The old bear growled at such newfangled gadgets. Nor was the HANS worn by race winner Michael Waltrip, who now says he plans on trying one in early March.

Waltrip was at a news conference Monday, at which NASCAR president Mike Helton repeated that safety is a No. 1 concern. Helton spoke of more research and testing on the HANS and further evaluation of ``soft wall'' barriers made of crushable but durable materials, like high-density foam, not concrete.

``We're not going to react for the sake of reacting,'' Helton said.

Just one problem:

The technology already exists.

The HANS device was developed two decades ago. It has been patented since 1987. It's required in Formula One racing and on oval tracks in CART.

There are lots of NASCAR drivers who say the HANS is too bulky and restricts movement. But isn't consciousness a real key to movement?

As for the ``soft wall'' technology, track owners complain that a crash would destroy the soft wall and make debris fly. Think of the clean-up. The delays. And race fans waiting.

One veteran driver responded in The Orlando Sentinel, which recently did a fascinating study on safety and NASCAR foot dragging. Back to soft walls. Here's what the driver said:

``I'd rather they spend 20 minutes cleaning that mess than cleaning me off the wall.''

The driver was Dale Earnhardt.

TIME FOR NASCAR to step up. It has made racing safer over the years. These cars are amazingly strong, as witnessed by that massive pile-up earlier in Sunday's race, in which everyone lived to race another day.

But this is no time to sit still, though this is racing and men will die. You can't be America's game when autopsies add up. It's not even that way in wrestling.

NASCAR and racing teams and sponsors spend millions on marketing and promotions.

It's lives that are priceless.

Let's appeal to NASCAR's basic instinct. You need your stars. You just lost your Jordan. Dale Earnhardt. Big E.

Big D.

How does it feel?

We're running into a mentality harder than concrete. It's rough, tough guys fighting this damn collar. It's a governing body unwilling to force this HANS device on the men who steer the cash cows.

Well, too bad.

Here's a good new rule:

Wear it or you don't drive.

Instead, NASCAR's trying to walk away without a scratch.

We get a doctor at Monday's news conference saying he can't be sure Earnhardt would have been saved by the HANS. We get Waltrip talking about eventually wearing it. We get Mike Helton not reacting for the sake of reacting.

Worst of all, we get old Bill France Jr., NASCAR chairman of the board, feeling awful for his friend Dale, but also for Waltrip because this crash threw ``water on his win.''

This isn't Fireball Roberts dying with 15,000 people and 11 newspapers watching, Mr. Bill. This is Earnhardt, your hero, dead on your track and America's big screen.

Maybe we just can't reach these guys.

Smart men have tried.

ONE IS NAMED Jim Downing. He's an Atlanta-based sports car driver who helped create the HANS device.

Downing wears the HANS, but even he was stunned by Earnhardt's death.

``Everybody's just shocked because you'd come to think he was Superman,'' Downing said by telephone Monday. ``He can't get hurt. He's a man's man. I don't think any of the old-timers thought he could be killed.''

Therein lies the blackest silver lining in the history of auto racing.

Monday, Jim Downing was encouraged and sad at the same time. He said that in the first 10 years of its existence, there were only 250 HANS devices sold. In the last nine months, after Adam Petty's death, there were 350 sold. Then came Monday.

Fifty orders came in by midafternoon.