My Ongoing Tribute to the Greatest NASCAR Driver Ever

Dale Earnhardt

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Deford: Understanding NASCAR's fans

By Frank Deford, Sports Illustrated
February 28, 2001
6:41 PM EST (2341 GMT)

The tragic death of Dale Earnhardt -- particularly coming, as it did, just as NASCAR began its new, lucrative television deal -- has prompted a great deal more discussion about the justification of automobile racing in our civilized American society. Especially in the North, and most especially among old-line sports fans, there is a visceral, deep-seated antipathy toward NASCAR.

Just so, as we say, "you know where I'm coming from," let me tell you: Automobile racing leaves me cold. Don't take it personally. It's only a matter of taste. You probably don't want me on your side. I also don't like Picasso, Scotch whiskey, Thanksgiving or Forrest Gump. Four things compete on race tracks. I enjoy watching horses and people race; I don't enjoy watching dogs and cars race.

I also have no affinity for most NASCAR fans. I do not wish to bond with them, and I certainly do not want to drink beer with them. But having said that, let me also state, directly, that I do not think for a moment race fans are bloodthirsty ghouls who go out to tracks to picnic and to see accidents. The manifold despair displayed for Mr. Earnhardt's death should dispel that canard all by itself for all time.

No -- NASCAR fans love their drivers. They don't want them dead or maimed. As a matter of fact, I believe that's why car racing is so much more popular than any other type of racing.

Because the same drivers compete, Sunday after Sunday. And since we all drive cars, motor sports fans identify with their heroes -- more so, I think, than do fans in other sports. The attraction is not seeing an accident. Rather, the attraction is watching drivers risk an accident, time and time again. We don't go to the circus to see the lion eat the lion tamer. We go to marvel at how close the lion tamer comes to being eaten.

Critics also like to argue that race-car drivers are not bona fide athletes. Of course they are. You can be an athlete sitting down. Dale Earnhardt was as much, if not more, of an athlete than is any baseball designated hitter, any PGA golfer or any 300-pound lineman stuffing the run.

There's no question in my mind that much of the distaste for NASCAR has nothing to do with sport, but derives from history and geography. If only General Pickett had had the Intimidator in car No. 3 leading his charge across the Gettysburg dale, things would have been very different. NASCAR, you see, reminds us that the South has risen again. But it also amuses me that the cries for the abolition of automobile racing, the captious claims of its barbarism, invariably come from people up North who love boxing, and find that sport manly.

Certainly, both boxing and automobile racing are dangerous, but the difference is that boxing is the one in which the intent is to hurt your opponent. Safety issues in automobile racing? Boxing is anti-safety. Of course, automobile racing is terribly perilous, and before long, as sure as there will be another chorus of Dixie raised from the infield, some other driver will follow poor Earnhardt to his grave.

But nobody makes these men climb into their drivers' seats, and none of them are trying to hurt one another. Automobile racing gives no insult to our morality, the way boxing -- the favorite sporting amusement of many intellectuals -- does.

No, although NASCAR may be too loud and tacky, too fast and garish for many of us, it is a perfectly honorable slice of American life.....and death.

Frank Deford's commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.