The races go on.(stock car races after death of Dale Earnhardt)

The sport will never be the same. But a week after Dale Earnhardt died, his teams moved forward, trying to put in place a plan for the rest of the season.

For many, the enthusiasm for stock car racing died February 18 when Dale Earnhardt was killed in a crash on the final lap of the Daytona 500. The sport will never be the same, but for the teams on which Earnhardt competed and owned, life goes on. There is little time for grieving.

Racing, it seems, stops for no one. Not when it is a way of life. Not when the livelihood of so many families depends on it.

So when engines were fired last Sunday at Rockingham, N.C., the drivers in Dale Earnhardt Inc. cars--Steve Park, Michael Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr.--took the green flag. Earnhardt's black No. 3 was missing from the field--it never will be run again--but Kevin Harvick represented Richard Childress Racing in Earnhardt's car.

It was painted white, with a black No. 29 and Goodwrench logo on each side.

This is Childress' 26th full season in Winston Cup racing, and it would have been his 19th with Earnhardt. Despite the immeasurable loss of his driver and close friend, Childress knows it's his responsibility to carry on.

"Dale and I talked about what would happen if I was in Africa and got run over by an elephant, or fell off of a mountain, or if something happened to him in whatever manner, what we would want to do," Childress says. "And it is to go on. Both of us are racers, and we made a pledge to each other that we would go on.