Fotheringham's Homework

By Jan
Mar. 6, 2001

I wrote this letter in response to an article that Allan Fotheringham, former columnist for Maclean's magazine, wrote after the death of Dale Earnhardt, a stock car racing legend, in Feb. 2001.

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Dale Earnhardt�s death is a very sad thing, but so is the way Allan Fotheringham depicts the sport of stock car racing and NASCAR in his column, �Waiting for the next crash.� A comparison to the WWF and the NFL and even XFL is not deserved by the sport of stock car racing. NASCAR does not advocate violence, like these other sports do. NASCAR doesn�t go out and say wreck the guy racing next to you. And if you did that, you would be penalized. NASCAR fans don�t want to see that either. We don�t watch racing to see guys wreck, like Fotheringham seems to think. That�s the last thing any of us want to see happen is for a driver to get hurt on the track. But crashing is inevitable. Just like when you�re driving to work in the morning, you never know when someone�s going to sideswipe you. Accidents happen, and sometimes people die. It�s really sad. But we can�t lay the blame on aerodynamics packages, (the one mentioned in the article is only raced at two tracks), and we can�t lay the blame on NASCAR. They try to make those cars as safe as they can be, but there is always risk involved in this sport, and every driver knows that.

We lost a great member of the racing family a couple of weeks ago. A Legend. A Champion. But all Fotheringham can say about him is �the moniker seemed fairly familiar.� So maybe Fotheringham knows next to nothing about NASCAR and it�s drivers, but at least give them the respect they deserve. Do your homework. Before you stereotype the sport, the fans, and the drivers, find out who they really are and what something like this really means. And if it�s true as stated in the column that �real men like to see blood flow,� then you won�t find any real men, or women for that fact, watching NASCAR. The loss of Dale Earnhardt is a family affair. We�re all mourning. This sport isn�t just about racing. It�s about the people, the drivers, the fans, who make it what it is.

Thank-you,

Jan