Have you ever felt like the worse pain you ever felt is the wound thats opened more than once? First off, I am 17 years old. Young? Yes. Incapable of human feelings? No way. I have experienced pain in my life, like everyone, although adults seem to tell me its "nothing" in comparison. My problems probably haven't been serious, I lead an incredible, fortunate life. But the past 2 months, I have felt incredible pain. The sport I have grown to love the past few years, NASCAR, has been stricken by 2 tragic deaths at the same track...the same turn...approximately 10 yards away from one another. Did I know the victims? No, but I felt like I did, which makes me an easy target for the people who don't follow auto racing, because they think that just because you don't know these athletes, you shouldn't care. Well, I do. And I am standing up and saying so.
I was an Adam Petty fan. Wait, let me correct myself, I STILL AM an Adam Petty fan. When I heard about his death, I stared at my computer screen for 5 minutes, no exaggeration. Sat there, jaw dropped, in shock of the headlines on Nascar Online. Adam Petty Dies Following Crash at NHIS. I barely made it up the stairs, stood in my kitchen and mumbled to my mother that Adam Petty got killed. She gasped...I left the room. I went to be alone. And I cried. I had been following Adam for a few years at that point. I even met him months earlier. And now he was gone? It was uncomprehendible. He was 19, just 2 years older than me. When family members heard, they asked how I was, they knew I was a fan. They knew about the picture on my bedroom wall, they saw my t-shirt and they knew about the bear I had bought in Daytona. They knew I cared. They know still that I ache over this.
When I told my friends about Adam, they didn't quite understand. I heard everything from, "at least it wasn't a family member" to "you didn't know him personally, why are you so upset?", which in turn, made me more upset. People that aren't fans of NASCAR or even racing in general don't understand that once you get involved with this sport, these guys are like parts of your family. Week in and week out, you watch them compete. If you're lucky enough, you get to meet them. They become parts of you and when something like this happens, a piece of you is missing. My Saturdays watching the Busch races are never, ever going to be the same because even though Kyle now runs the car, its not ADAM. I still cannot believe he is gone...
Which brings me to my first statement...a wound that is opened more than once hurts the most. It has started all over again. Now Kenny Irwin is gone. I admit it, I wasn't the BIGGEST Kenny Irwin fan. When he was up front, I was happy for him. When he was going for the win in Daytona, I cheered for him. I often told my sister I thought he was good looking. I didn't wear his shirts though. I didn't make a fan site for him. But that doesn't mean that I don't care, because I do. I am angry that this happened again. I am not angry at NASCAR though. I am not angry at the track owner. I am not angry at the parents who let their children risk their lives in a race car every weekend. I am angry at no one. Just angry that it happened.
People are now pointing the blame at New Hampshire International Speedway. Maybe something needs to be done there, but whoever built it didn't make it the way they did so 2 young people would DIE there. Others are pointing the blame at the "dangerous sport". Yeah, going 200 mph isn't the safest job in the world, but these guys love it. They have a passion for it. Just because people get killed doing their job doesn't make everyone else stop working. Adam and Kenny could have gotten killed going to the track instead of racing on it. Either way, I believe it was their time. I am not overly religious, I don't attend church but I do believe in a God. I believe he has a scheme for things, a plan for each and every person on this earth. His plan for Adam and Kenny was to have them live passionately for a sport and die doing it. But think about it this way...they both died doing what they loved. How many people can say that? My grandfather had a heartattack, he sure didn't love that. My classmate was shot and killed, he didn't enjoy that. I just hope that when God decided its my time, he takes me out happy, doing what I love. Which honestly, would be at a race track.
I read an article written by some bozo saying that this is ultimately gonna tear this sport apart. This is going to be what takes the fans away. That guy was wrong. Every NASCAR fan knows that Adam and Kenny want things to go on, the last thing they'd ever want would be for the racing to cease, because that was what they lived, and unfortunately, died for. The man who wrote the article showed every racing fan he knew nothing about the subject he was reporting. Nothing is going to tear us fans away. We live for the sport, as Davey, Neil, Alan, Adam and Kenny did and we will go on, in their memory...
written by Ashley Lynn Marshall,
July 14th, 2000
