We are spoiled, race fans
I became a fan of Winston Cup racing in 1993. That year Rusty Wallace won 10 races. That black deuce was the coolest looking car, and Wallace didn’t look or sound like a stereotypical NASCAR driver. That season was punctuated by an incredible wreck for the 2 car at Talladega.
Bob Jenkins and Benny Parsons, an iconic Cup announcing duo in my opinion were shortly remarking how they could see Rusty moving around in the smoking tubular skeleton of his wrecked machine. It felt like a miracle that he survived not one, but two airborne, harrowing, car shredding crashes in a single season. He had already done the exact same bone-jarring choreography to exit the season opening Daytona 500.
There hadn’t been that much torn up Miller Genuine Draft aluminum since the first time my parents left me at home alone for an overnight.
I can remember some really insane moments in my time as a Cup fantatic. Ricky Craven’s car tumbling through the catch-fence at ‘Dega. Ryan Newman’s previously most-harrowing Daytona 500 wreck, or Michael McDowell’s machine impossibly seeming to gain speed at Texas. They all walked away.
Ernie Irvan wasn’t quite so lucky at Michigan. But he would return to racing after the practice wreck that derailed his 1994 title hopes.
There were much darker times. Two fatal accidents at my home track in New Hampshire that claimed a young Kenny Irwin, and an impossibly young Adam Petty. Leading up to 2001, we were still in the racing dark ages. We let these guys crash in to concrete walls and thought it was ok. Literally.
In light of Ryan Newman’s terrifying crash to cap of this year’s Daytona 500, there seems to be a questioning about the safety of racing. Is there a moral question about doing this? About plate racing? About going this fast?
The answer is obviously maybe. We can’t stop asking questions. For race fans of a certain age, the haunting image of an ambulance crawling to Halifax Medical Center on a sunny day, a desperately jogging Dale Jr., and the haunted eyes of Kenny Schrader are unforgettable. Dale Earnhardt’s death propelled the sport in to a new era of safety, and thanks to angels and engineers, he is the last Cup driver who died in competition.
The car that became the controversial car of tomorrow is an engineering marvel. The concrete that cars used to smash at crushing speeds is covered with a system to dissipate the deadly energy. Helmets, seats, head and neck systems, foam in the panels of the doors and specially placed roll bars all mean that this pursuit of inhuman speed is astronomically safer.
Is it dangerous? Of course.
Can you take the danger away? No. Never.
As the Fox cameras zoomed in on the smoking hulk of Ryan Newman’s Ford, fuel dripping from the ruptured cell, and the ungodly sight of the crushed roll cage laying on the asphalt, my heart sank.
That Newman is alive, and talking, is a miracle. It’s a miracle I’m grateful for. It alleviated a feeling that the NASCAR community hasn’t felt in 19 years. The tears we all held back never fell. But make no mistake, they may someday. We’ve been spoiled race fans.
Our heroes ride the edge of sanity, tempting death every week. They know it, and we know it. I’m so happy to be spoiled. If we’re lucky, it will be a very long time before we have that pit in our stomachs again. But remember that whole time just how spoiled you are.
I love this sport, and I love that Ryan Newman is still with us. So glad to be spoiled.
