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flag at Daytona flies at half staff in honor of Dale Earnhardt,
whose final lap in the Daytona 500 was as final as
they get. The fabled driver hit the wall at 180 mph (or so) and
that was that. A great sport has lost one of its great men; bitter
tears must fall.
And now, of course, meddling fingers must wag. To no surprise, we
hear calls for extra safety devices, replacing concrete walls with
shock-absorbent barriers, and reversing crowd-pleasing rules changes
that can make the running of races more dangerous. One suspects
it is only a matter of time before a group of professional scolds
targets NASCAR as a negative cultural model for young drivers and
begins threatening corporate sponsors.
Yet there is no doubt that Dale would want things to go on as they
have. While no one (save for the acutely sick) welcomes injury or
death, the possibility that drivers will depart the track as purely
spiritual beings is a defining characteristic of the sport. Indeed,
the willingness to risk death in the pursuit of excellence qualifies
NASCAR racers as philosophical role models of the first degree.
Racing, to be sure, is not the only sport to which death and serious
injury sometimes pay a visit. There is the occasional snapped neck
in football, soccer fans have been trampled in stampedes and, in
one notable occasion, a player was shot dead apparently for the
high crime of scoring against his own team. Boxing produces the
occasional fatality. But death lurks quite close by in racing. The
cars are fast, the traffic is thick, and the incentives to win are
large. Every participant risks a quick trip through the Lonesome
Valley, and everyone knows this. Besides that, should a car jump
a wall, some fans may also experience an unexpected rapture.
This element of danger elicits two basic responses. One is
| “There
is no doubt that Dale would want things to go on as they
have.” |
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loathsome, and loathsomely familiar. It holds that race drivers
are fools to risk their lives in a meaningless pursuit: driving
in circles at high speeds. Drivers are also blamed for pandering
to their fans' deep desire to witness death. As for the former charge,
these critics clearly fail to recognize their own place on life's
treadmill, which in their case is dull, plodding, fearful affair.
More to the point, they fail to recognize the various glories of
auto racing, including its longstanding habit of flipping off the
Grim Reaper at every opportunity.
The most apparent glory of racing, to be sure, is mechanical: These
cars are magnificent machines, capable of producing the power of
750 horses, without a nag among them. Driving these cars at 200
miles per hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic reflects the incredible
complexity of the human mind and body. Their presence on earth also
assures us that the animals and plants whose bodies have been transformed
into petroleum products did not live and die in vain.
But the most glorious aspect of all is the fact that racing represents
a total rejection of several negative cultural developments. This
fact is quite obvious to anyone who attends a NASCAR event.
Races open with a prayer and a showing of the national colors, both
of which are reverently received despite the fact that many fans
are ingesting booze at a ferocious clip. Because prayer has now
been officially deemed as a private ritual, the sight of 100,000
or so bowed heads at a non-religious gathering is a reminder of
how much religion once infused American life. This can cause despair
among nostalgic members of the audience, yet they can be assured
that the Good Lord is much more likely to make his reappearance
at a NASCAR race than at a general convention of the Episcopal Church,
for the crowd will be much friendlier.
Pious heads return to earth at the start of the engines. These horses
roar. Because sound begets sound, soon enough the audience is roaring
as well. This is helped along by the fact that race patrons are
allowed to bring in their own alcohol, which is in great contrast
to other professional sports, which not only insist that the public
pay for stadiums through tax increases but mercilessly gouge the
drinking public.
This spirit of lives lived full is reflected in other ways. A seemingly
large portion of the crowd does not make a fetish of counting calories,
and should the lights suddenly go out the red glow of burning tobacco
products would fully illuminate the track and allow the race to
proceed. All told, if one were to sum up the environment in a phrase,
it would be: Up Yours, Surgeon General.
And that is among the most philosophically sound positions a human
can hold. The obsessive fear of death that mars our age — an
age in which members of the wealthiest societies in history fear
the sun above, the grave below, and the choicest items in the incredible
banquet spread before them — finds no favor with this crowd.
In earlier days, parents sent their children to college to learn
proper philosophy. These days, they'd be better off sending them
to the racetrack, where the wise men — living and departed
— teach a simple, eternal lesson: Fear not.
Dale Earnhardt is dead. But only a little.
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