Cease production of the penny, let collector’s gobble up what’s left of the 1 cent coin, and there will still be one eternally glued to Dale Earnhardt’s old Chevrolet, the luckiest piece of loose change in NASCAR history. The penny was doomed into obscurity after President Donald Trump this week directed the Treasury Department to stop minting new ones, citing the rising cost of producing the coin. The memories that linger of Earnhardt, 24 years after his death in the 2001 Daytona 500, and of the penny given to him by a 6-year-old girl ahead of his 1998 Daytona 500 victory, are priceless to those who were there for one of NASCAR’s seminal moments.
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