ESPN Network: ESPN.com | NFL.com | NBA.com | ABCSports | EXPN | FANTASY



Racing's fatal attraction

Special to Page 2


Dale Earnhardt's death last week meant the loss of a champion, an idol, a husband, a father, a man. And the saddest thing is that his death won't be the last in auto racing.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. & Dale Earnhardt Sr.
Top: Dale Earnhardt Jr. hits the wall during the Dura Lube 400 on Sunday. Bottom: Dale Earnhardt Sr. hits the wall while getting hit by Ken Schrader in the Daytona 500 on Feb. 18.
In the days since Earnhardt's death in the Daytona 500, I heard and read several times that his fatal crash was the equivalent of Michael Jordan dying in the NBA Finals or Ken Griffey Jr. dying in the World Series.

That's wrong. Such hypothetical deaths in other sports would be much different for one simple and very important fact: Those sports do not kill their athletes.

Even with the danger of a beanball, we do not watch the World Series wondering whether Derek Jeter will survive all nine innings. We do not watch the NBA playoffs worried that a blatant foul will send Kobe Bryant to the morgue. And as violent, bloody and potentially crippling as football can be, we are not concerned that a player will be carried from the Super Bowl with a white sheet over his body.

True, deaths occur in other sports. Just this week, Florida State linebacker Devaughn Darling collapsed and died after what was described as intense agility and conditioning drills (an autopsy was to reveal the cause of the death). More infamously, Loyola Marymount (Calif.) college basketball player Hank Gathers collapsed and died on the court during a game in 1990, though that was due to an undetected heart problem, not the nature of the sport.

The issue, however, is not whether death calls upon other sports on rare occasions, but whether death is an unavoidable part of the sport, whether it is an almost routine visitor to the arena. And it isn't. When we attend contests in baseball, basketball, hockey, football, soccer, golf -- you name it -- we quite reasonably expect that all the athletes will still be alive at the end.

Not so in auto racing. In just the past year, the sport has killed four drivers, including Earnhardt.

It almost seemed odd, then, when NASCAR officials investigated the exact cause of Earnhardt's death, when the cause was as obvious as the sponsorship logos on his Chevy. He crashed his car into a wall at 180 mph. Someone crashes at that speed on the interstate and no one asks why. Yet Earnhardt dies and people express surprise.

It didn't look like that bad a crash. I've seen worse.

Well, no, Earnhardt's crash didn't look that bad. And yes, we've all seen worse, much worse. Earnhardt himself not only survived a 1997 wreck in which his car flipped several times, he got out of the ambulance, returned to the car and finished the race. His son's crash this week was frighteningly similar to his father's fatal wreck, yet Dale Earnhardt Jr. walked away with a limp and bruises.

That's the way it is in racing. There are wrecks all the time. Sometimes the drivers walk away from those crashes. Sometimes ambulances take them to hospitals where doctors patch them and return them to health so they can race again. And sometimes, much too often, they die.

If you suspect that I am not an auto racing fan, that I do not understand racing's compelling elements the way so many fans passionately do, you are correct. I simply cannot understand the appeal of an event that includes death riding in the passenger seat.

If any of this comes off as unfeeling, I do not mean it to. I feel sad for Earnhardt, his family, his friends and his many fans, just as I feel sad for all the people who died in car wrecks that same weekend without the accompanying headlines, repeated videotapes and national outpouring of grief.

And just as I will feel sad for the family, friends and fans of the next driver when he crashes and does not limp away, when he turns in his race car for a hearse.

Jim Caple of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is a regular contributor to ESPN.com's baseball coverage and Page 2.

Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories


thrills kill 


ALSO SEE:
Caple: Trust me on the sunscreen

Caple: Valentine's Day and foul tips

Caple: Revisionist history

Caple: Fearless Super Bowl predictions

Caple: On the verge of hyperventilating

Caple: Mascot malfeasance

Caple: An extreme year ahead

Caple: What a crazy year

Caple: My wish for the New Year

Caple: Prima donna warning signs





 
    
 
 
ESPN.com: HELP | ADVERTISER INFO | CONTACT US | TOOLS | SITE MAP
Copyright ©2001 ESPN Internet Ventures. Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and Safety Information are applicable to this site. Employment opportunities at ESPN.com.