Ok, this post is by no means trying to disrepect Dale Sr. in either way, I respected the man and think he is one of the best race car drivers ever. There have been rumors that when he was killed, the impact was so forceful that it cut his head off. Has anyone else heard these kinds of rumors and if so do you think there is any truth to them?
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You may be thinking about Russell Phillips. He was a driver in the Sportsman division, killed in 1995 at Charlotte.
Actually, there is something of a decapitation connection that may be the reason for the confusion.Because of Russell Phillip's really, really horrible crash, NASCAR started looking at roll cage design and construction. Then Earnhardt had his bad crash at Talladega that led NASCAR to mandate the "Earnhardt Bar" for all divisions. It's the metal brace that runs down the windshield and helps reinforce the roof.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Phillips
No, he wasn't decapitated. He died of a basilar skull fracture, which is when the brain is severed from the spinal cord. He also had massive chest injuries. He was thrown further forward in the car than he should have been because of the improperly installed seat belt, (installed that way largely because of his own preferences.) The crash was approximately 160 MPH head on at an almost straight angle. He was going close to 200 MPH before the crash, but naturally the car lost some velocity when it began to spin. When he overcorrected the car and went back up the track he likely never took his foot off the accelerator since he was trying to save the car, so it probably gained back some of the velocity it lost in the initial spin, and when Shrader's car hit him it increased the velocity into the wall as well. Unlike the Talladega crash he survived in 1996, the car spun around slower this time and thus maintained its bad straight on angle to long and hit the wall before it could spin to a safer angle while still maintaining much of its forward velocity, creating the worst case scenario.
So he flew into the steering wheel at approximately that speed, the steering wheel undoubtedly caused the chest injuries, and his chin or head probably either hit the steering wheel also, or else the dashboard. Because of the abrasions we know the seat belt yanked him back into the seat, otherwise he would have been thrown through the windshield at that speed, as people typically are if they aren't wearing seat belts even at lower speeds than that. But because of its improper installation that allowed for the dumping, the seat belt yanked him back to late. Its no guarantee that he would have survived had the seat belt been properly installed, but there is no question he wouldn't have hit the steering wheel nearly as hard and his injuries likely would not have been nearly as severe. The eight broken ribs and chest injuries likely would not have been as severe, but he might have still died from the head whipping forward since he wore no Hans Device. My guess is with a properly installed seat belt and a HANS device he would have had a fair chance of walking away from that crash, despite its severity. We will never know for sure though.