The show must go on

By DAVID GREEN

John Force Racing, mourning the loss of driver Eric Medlen, is sitting out this weekend's O'Reilly Spring Nationals at Houston Raceway Park in Baytown, Texas. It's the first event on the NHRA PowerAde Drag Racing Series schedule since Medlen suffered fatal injuries at Gainesville (Fla.) Raceway in a crash during a test session March 19.

Tragedies tend to unite everyone in the motor sports family, but people look at and deal with death in different ways. The decision by the Force team reminded me of August 1992, when Davey Allison opted to compete in the Champion Spark Plug 400 at Michigan International Speedway just days after his brother, Clifford, was killed when his Busch Series car crashed during practice at the 2-mile MIS oval.

Some critics thought it was cold-hearted of Allison to race. Conversely, some people -- perhaps some of the more ardent fans of the popular 14-time champion Force, who were looking forward to seeing him race this weekend -- will disagree with Force's decision not to race at Houston.

This is a subject in which, in my opinion, nobody has any valid right to criticize, no matter what the decisions may be.

I understood Davey Allison's feelings and I supported his decision to race to a fifth-place finish, then leave the track without fielding any questions from the media. Likewise, I understand John Force's feelings and I support his decision not to race this weekend.

Allison's actions were in synch with the long-standing sentiment that "the show must go on" -- a phrase borrowed from the entertainment industry, but applicable in a special way in auto racing. Racing was what the Allison family did. It was not a pastime or a hobby; it was their profession. Davey did not race because he had no feelings for the loss of his younger brother; he did it in spite of those strong feelings.

Force's decision, likewise, is hardly unprecedented. NASCAR fans have only to recall the actions of one of stock car racing's most famous and venerable teams, Petty Enterprises, in the aftermath of the death of 19-year-old Adam Petty at New Hampshire in 2000.

Historical perspective, as it almost always does, helps us understand the actions of individuals in situations such as these. If personal recollection does not suffice, the book "Let 'Em All Go!" -- the autobiography of veteran racing journalist Chris Economaki, co-authored by my pal Dave Argabright -- will explain it.

In the early days, auto racing was a horribly dangerous endeavor -- but then, life itself was a much more risky proposition than we imagine it to be nowadays. Infant mortality was high, and if a child survived infancy, there was a plethora of hazards in the path to adulthood. For those who made it to adulthood, the number of years they could rightfully expect were many fewer than today.

And so, we took death more in stride -- not just in primitive automobile racing, but in general.

Now, we micromanage the prenatal health of unborn children (those, that is, that we don't choose to purposely abort), carefully nurture their health, protect them from various maladies, place them in snug and safe car seats. When they get a little older, we pad their playgrounds and the equipment on them, make them wear helmets when riding a bike or skateboarding, fuss over their diets.

When we are old enough to take on personal responsiblity, we live with incessant, blaring warnings about various health hazards from STDs to tobacco, and many of us spend much of our income to lose weight or to remain (or become) physically fit. We monitor calories, carbohydrates and cholestorol and take an enormous quantity of prescription drugs and/or vitamins and nutrients. Medical procedures that were once the stuff of science-fiction writers are the outpatient procedures of today.

All of which is perfectly well and good -- until and unless it causes us to lose sight of the fact that, unless I miss my guess, none of us is getting out of here alive.

Economaki writes about an incident in the 1930s in which a young racer is killed in a crash at a New Jersey track. Race officials tell his father, in essense, "OK -- he's dead, and he's all yours." The father is left to load the wreckage of the race car onto a trailer, put the body of his son in the trunk of the tow car, and go home.

Meanwhile, the show goes on.

Then and now, that is the constant.