Blink of an Eye is a 2019 documentary that takes an inside look at 2001’s Daytona 500 featuring Michael Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
It begins as it should, on the track of one of, if not the most significant days in NASCAR racing history, February 18, 2001. Michael Waltrip met the checkered flag and won his very first points-paying race after hundreds of losses at none other than the prestigious Daytona 500. It was a milestone moment, one to be greatly celebrated, and one he himself in the present day looks into the camera and reflects upon with genuine humility and emotion. That’s because it was moments later, while celebrating his victory, when he learned his friend and fellow driver Dale Earnhardt was dead after crashing into the wall mere seconds before he could get across the finish line. He has, like so many nearly two decades later, yet been able to get truly past it.
Director Paul Taublieb follows Waltrip on a kind of personal odyssey as he retells of his life growing up in the shadow of his older brother Darrell Waltrip and life as a stock car racer. We get first-hand accounts of his desires to be like his brother (who appears on camera as well), from go-carts to muscle cars, pursuing his dream to go big. Unfortunately, once in NASCAR, he doesn’t quite have the winning edge of Darrell, famously losing 462 races (made graphically integral in the film) before his victory at Daytona.
Naturally, that win is overshadowed by Earnhardt’s surprise death from an accident that didn’t look all that serious when it happened. The film shifts a bit to examine the impact of the Earnhardt dynasty and the near mythological effect Dale Earnhardt had on the sport keeping him in a highly respectful light throughout, tracking how Waltrip would become part of the family fold, joining their racing team, the Daytona race his first with them.
And this is where Blink of an Eye might lose some interested in this story, as it remains a Waltrip story with Earnhardt mostly peripheral yet significant, presenting home movies and archival footage that builds this competitive yet personal relationship to greater heights as it heads to that fateful day in Daytona. This puts Waltrip in the chair, talking to an unseen and unheard interviewer, he mostly recounting his own story as a few other talking heads pop up, including Dale Earnhardt Jr., Waltrip’s former wife Elizabeth “Buffy” Franks, and even Richard Petty, though most of these are brief (Petty’s blink or you’ll miss it appearance is even interrupted by Waltrip, who thanks him for participating).
Either way, if you’re a fan of NASCAR, Waltrip or not, Blink of an Eye is a love letter to the sport. Sure, it’s Waltrip’s story, but there is a lot about it that gets you behind the scenes of his career and by extension, the cars and tracks themselves. He’s got a mountain of an ego, which is already well known, and the film works to sort of smooth those edges even as he speaks most proudly of his accomplishments. But he’s also very emotional, breaking down often as he recalls his time under the influence of Earnhardt. And that looms over the film entire, the title itself a reference to the inspired highs and devastating lows that can come and go with racing.