Motor Sports: Burned

When I was a small boy, I went to the emergency room late one evening with a severe earache. While I was there, some medics rushed through two men on stretchers who were bloodied and charred from some sort of accident. This was a horrific sight for my virginal eyes. Never had I seen so much blood and gore in one place. The men had charred black skin from the fire and they looked like they had been dunked in a tank of blood. Festering bones were exposed from puncture wounds and one of the men had a leg dangling by a thread of skin. Aside from the horror movie violence, the thing I remember the most was the screaming.

Such piercing wails in the middle of the mostly desolate hallways of the emergency room. My mother gripped my hand as a nurse came over and knelt down before me. She brushed the blonde hair out of my eyes and said, "Promise your mother that you will never, EVER race your car when you are older. Promise her." As the nurse made her desperate plea, she had tears welling up in her eyes. I was frightened by the whole incident and gave my mom a hug, promising that I would never race a car with anyone. That seemed to soothe the nurse’s nerves a little, as she must have been a mother herself. While I hugged my mother, the murderous screams faded into the distance as the men were wheeled into the O.R. Across the room, a police officer quietly spoke to a nearby triage nurse on the incident. He just shook his head and gazed at the speckles of blood on the floor and simply saying, "They were racing each other. When you race cars, you are playing with fire."

It was such a long time ago that this night occurred, but it was such a surreal moment. Yesterday, as I watched the replays of Dale Earnhardt smashing into the concrete walls at the Daytona 500, I couldn’t help but think back to the words of that police officer.

On Sunday, NASCAR racing lost its Michael Jordan.

I can not say I am a fan of NASCAR racing. In my opinion, it is an event where a group of men depend solely on fine-tuned, mechanical objects for their glory. These men need no physical prowess as even men who have seen their golden years are still able to go for the checkered flag. Racing just isn’t like the others. It is a black sheep as it is lumped into the sport category, yet it isn’t necessarily a sport of physical ability. I don’t like to call it a sport as no one is learning the fundamentals of an alley-oop or for throwing a curveball. Auto racing is more dependent on the ability and performance of the cars than the people who control the cars. It is more of a mental competition where the stakes are almost as high as a round of Russian Roulette.

Auto racing is the number one spectator sport in the country, and I can’t say I enjoy it in the least bit. Never could I stomach the idea of rooting for an event where someone’s hero could die so suddenly, so fruitlessly, during competition.

I couldn’t ever grasp watching the death of one of my hero’s dying in competition.

Dale Earnhardt, a hero to millions across the country, was killed instantly in a car crash at the Daytona 500. To me, it seems like such a tragic event that never should have occurred. The man was so successful, but in the grand scheme of things, he risked life and limb with every single million he made, racing around the ovals.

Dale Earnhardt’s life disappeared when his car squashed against the wall. His signature, black "3" car went from 180 mph. to 0 mph., all in the span of half a second.

Supposedly viewers were put off by the lack of those daring, positional maneuvers during last year’s Daytona 500. A small minority of sickos even hinted that they wanted to see wheels exploding, cars flipping over, raining down fire onto the oval track. They just wanted it to be the OTHER guys. Not one of their favorites. These guys have to get it through their skulls that race car drivers aren’t all Super Men. Not everyone is going to be able to walk away from a flaming piece of twisted scrap metal.

Chances are when cars crash and burn, the people driving the cars will crash and burn.

Crashes might look cool on TV to some, but I’m not so sure the driver’s family and friends would feel the same way.

In racing, no one is safe from death. It is a life choice people make, knowing that each and every day they get into those cars, they are going to be going at speeds that would make the Autobahn look like the Grand Prix driving course at Disney World. With each and every race, each driver risks life and limb for a major purse. While some might question the risks, people are still choosing to drive and compete for the chance to win the fame and glory. However, unlike the other competitions, there is no margin of error in racing.

If Allen Iverson does a crossover dribble and gets the ball stolen away by a defender, he will have the ability to regroup from his turnover.

If Pedro Martinez gives up a monster home run, his heart will continue to pump. He will have that chance to strikeout the next batter that he sees.

In racing, the mistakes have to be few and far between. There is a hell of a lot of difference between the mental error of throwing the football into a cornerback’s hands, as opposed to making a mistake while locked inside an automobile that is cruising faster than the Millennium Falcon on warp speed.

If Dale Earnhardt was my sports hero and I watched him crash into that wall, I just don’t think my nerves could handle it.

Those stakes are just a little too high for me. While I think racing is boring, I really don’t want to see crashes and explosions. That might spruce it up for some, but that is just some twisted stuff. People forget that individuals are inside of those machines when they are ripping into zillions of pieces of shrapnel.

These aren’t remote controlled cars; people are actually inside of these things. People with loving wives, kids in college, and dogs that love to play fetch.

I have no affinity for racing yet I was stunned and tremendously saddened to hear of the passing of Dale Earnhardt. I didn’t know too much about him, but I did know enough to realize that he was an ambassador for the racing world.

If someone like Jordan, or Gretzky were tragically killed by the very nature of their sports, I would have some trouble warming back up to that respective sport.

NASCAR fans yesterday were saddened and said that they were down, but that Dale died "doing what he loved."

That sentence rings so hollow to me. All I see in that sentence was "he died…" He was only alive for fifty years.

Will racing be harmed by Earnhardt’s death? It’s sad to say that after a while, it will be business as usual until another star is maimed in action.

Yesterday, I was cringing watching replays of his crash; that police officer’s voice echoing in my mind.

He said that people who raced cars, played with fire.

Yesterday, one of the legends got burned.