Dale Earnhardt would be 58 now and would probably not find much to like about stock-car racing. His death on Feb. 18, 2001, in a last-lap accident at the Daytona 500, led NASCAR, and motorsports to a larger degree, into developments Earnhardt might have bristled at.

His death on that warm, sunny afternoon in Florida stunned NASCAR’s legion of loyal fans because Earnhardt, the seven-time Cup series champion known as the Intimidator, was regarded as invincible. But it also propelled the sport into American pop culture virtually overnight.

The popularity of the sport was expanding already, landing fat contracts with Fox and NBC and about to enter new markets in Chicago and Kansas. Earnhardt’s death led more fans to NASCAR, but it also led the circuit to focus harder on safety. Head and neck restraints, so-called “soft walls,” and roof hatches became a part of stock-car racing and motorsports in general. So did something called the Car of Tomorrow, a boxier but safer stock car.

But Earnhardt was an old-timer, not reluctant to knock a competitor out of his way — a character who had made the sport fun. Two days before he died, he sat on a golf cart outside his mobile home and grumbled that NASCAR was slowing the cars down to ensure closer racing.

“I want to be driving racecars to race them,” he said.

In the years after Earnhardt’s death, races were close, and television ratings and attendance grew. NASCAR became a destination, overwhelming the popularity of IndyCar racing and luring open-wheel drivers like Juan Pablo Montoya and Sam Hornish.

Young drivers, including Dale Earnhardt Jr., emerged to sell the sport, as well as blue jeans and energy drinks. In 2005, a 22-year-old rookie, Danica Patrick, became the first woman to lead the Indianapolis 500. Last year she was the first woman to win an IndyCar race. And she became a pretty good corporate spokeswoman, too.

Motorsports, in general, have turned more into another product to sell, with the racers losing, or not showing, their home-spun color. It is somehow fitting that Jimmie Johnson has become the dominant driver in stock-car racing.

Johnson won an unprecedented fourth consecutive Cup championship this year, and he is sociable and pleasant. But he drives for Hendrick Motorsports, the stock-car monolith, and he is careful not to say anything that would upset NASCAR, or, for that matter, his sponsors.

NASCAR has eclipsed other forms of motorsports in this country, including Indy-car and drag racing, and it has become ubiquitous, forcing many local-yokel racetracks with Saturday night cards out of business.

Nearly nine years after Earnhardt’s death, NASCAR has barreled into a challenge. With fans and sponsorship dollars disappearing because of the recession, the organization is aiming to reconnect with its roots — with the same people who were fans of Earnhardt before he died. A new decade opens with Patrick charging part-time into stock-car racing — driving a Chevrolet owned in part by Dale Earnhardt Jr. — and Earnhardt’s father, who always did like making a buck, would have no problem with either Patrick racing or his son hiring her.

He would not like the boring parades that many stock-car races have become. Racing, to him, was rubbing fenders and driving down on the grass if it meant passing another car. No. 3 decals proliferate on cars in NASCAR parking lots, but racecars do less racing these days.