by Rich Briggs

Created on: June 23, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Death, as we all know, is inevitable. We are all living on borrowed time, so what we do with the time that we have while we are here is what we are measured by. Some of us decide to take the safe, and easy, way around in life and there is nothing wrong with that. Others decide to live on the edge and challenge themselves. One way we challenge ourselves is with machines. The marriage of man and machine goes back to the turn of the 20th Century when man was developing the automobile, and then the airplane. It is the ultimate test of speed and how we push the boundaries.

As a racing fan, and more specifically a NASCAR fan, it is always a rush to watch these warriors put it on the line every week at speeds in excess of 200 mph. Although I do not follow drag racing like I used to back in the 1970s and 1980s, these men, and women, give it all they have for a quarter mile drag race. I heard the news of Scott Kalitta losing his life in a qualifying run and realized another racer had lost his life doing something that he loved. Watching the video was enough to make the hair stand up on your head, as the car burst into flames then, without the recovery chute, speed towards the end of the racing line, hitting the barrier, and then explode. One had to wonder how he could have survived the collision. He only later lost his battle at the hospital.

Scott Kalitta was supposed to have been retired a few times before this accident took his life. But anyone in the know realizes that once something gets into your blood, no matter what it is, it never leaves. For Scott Kalitta, the passion of racing funny cars was in his blood and he returned to the scene again for another shot at some glory. No one can blame him for wanting another taste of the action. It's too easy to tell someone not to do something they have been doing most of their lives, especially when that someone doing the telling doesn't understand how much passion you have for what you do.

The hard part comes, now, for the Kalitta family; his father, his wife, now a widow, and his two young sons. How do they move on? His father was an owner of the team that Kalitta was racing for. How does he move on knowing his son was killed using his equipment? I cannot imagine the pain and the burden that family is feeling, now, and I wouldn't want to imagine it. However, I cannot judge Kalitta's decision to climb back into a funny car to continue doing what he loved to do. When one hears of a golfer dying on the golf course, or anyone else dying doing what they loved to do, you simply say they went out doing what they loved.

This is the latest major racing tragedy since Dale Earnhardt was killed in that last lap crash in turn four at the 2001 Daytona 500, and that death still lingers to this day, with safety improvements and the Car of Tomorrow. To some, Earnhardt isn't dead, he is just in another place, watching races and keeping an eye on his son, Dale Jr. It will be interesting to see what, if any, modifications and improvements are made to drag racing in light of Kalitta's death. Unlike Earnhardt's car, Kalitta's car caught fire. That, in and of itself, is enough to look for more safety improvements. How long anything along those lines may take is anyone's guess. All we can do now is mourn Kalitta's untimely death, pray for his family, and hope the racing community can move on as best it can. Accidents will continue to happen. The fatalities just have to be minimal, if non-existent.

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