The Simple Truth About Racing Cars

Tomorrow NASCAR reveals its much-anticipated report on the death of Dale Earnhardt.  There will be scientific data and tables showing how the impact of cars effects the drivers and how those forces could be better absorbed with different designs and materials.  There will be data showing how new equipment can help the drivers withstand the deadly forces seen in crashes.  These are all good things.  They can make a very safe sport safer for the participants.  What will be forgotten in all this is the inherent danger in racing cars near 200 MPH.  The drivers know it.  They deal with it every day.  Their families deal with it every day.  You can update, modernize, and accessorize the cars all you want, but in the end someone will still die racing.  It's inevitable.

Dale Earnhardt knew it.  So did Adam Petty, and Neil Bonnett, and Rodney Orr.  People are going to die racing.  It's a fact of the sport.  Just like people will get severely beaned in baseball and people will be paralyzed in football.  It's a fact of the game.  Something that isn't talked about, but is always there, effecting every movement made on the track, diamond, or field.  It's not a dirty little secret or an unexpected event when it happens.  It's an underlying truth to the rules of the games.  It's, very simply, a part of the life of these people and their families.  Every day.

That's one reason I admire NASCAR drivers.  Some may not call it a ‘real' sport.  They may call it a left hand turn-athon.  What they cannot deny is the courage it takes to get in these cars on every Sunday and lay their life on the line to prove they are the best at what they do.  I wouldn't do it.  I probably wouldn't let my children do it.  I enjoy the simulator and the computer games, but in real life... it's a 'real' life.