While devastated racing fans grieve over a death in the family, and reformers push to make a deadly sport only slightly less deadly, I prefer to mark the tragic demise of NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt by celebrating a breed that is nearly extinct in America–the risk-taker.
Americans, once a brave people, have become averse to risk.
We even occasionally need a reminder that taking chances is what our country is all about. The republic was born on a leap of faith, the hope that crossing the Atlantic would mean that those brave enough (and foolish enough) to go could achieve a better life on the other side. Subsequent generations of risk-takers settled the West, launched businesses, fueled the Industrial Age, built great universities, discovered vaccines, explored the space frontier, and, recently, charted the human genetic code.
Waves of immigrants–whether from northern and southern Europe in the nation’s infancy or Southeast Asia and Latin America today–have understood that risk is America’s price of admission. Accepting those terms, they keep coming.
Like their ancestors who built the transcontinental railway in the 1800s, Chinese immigrants still risk their necks by contracting with ruthless smugglers who cram them into tiny vessels bound for the California shore. Mexican immigrants will wander for days in the 100-degree heat of the Arizona desert, some dying along the way, to reach the bright lights of Phoenix and then move on to Des Moines or Detroit or Dayton.
But the longer the immigrants stay here, the more risk-averse they are likely to become. Americans who claim that, in their professional or personal lives, they are content with what they have are almost certainly too afraid of losing what they’ve got to strive for anything more. We are accustomed to thinking not in terms of benefit, but in terms of cost. Eyeing an apple dangling on a branch, we are less likely to imagine the taste than to calculate the potential cost of climbing the tree to fetch it. Deciding that we could fall and break an arm, we go about our way and leave the apple untouched.
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We ask money managers for an assured return on our retirement investments. We dial up admissions offices of elite colleges to find out their requirements so that our sons and daughters, still in grade school, will have a greater chance of being accepted. And most recently, with the possibility of the country going into recession, we have come to value job stability and a reliable paycheck above all.
As we age, we look for security. We play it safe.
There are exceptions to the rule, and Dale Earnhardt seems to have been one of them. The 49-year-old father and grandfather must have known the chance he was taking every time he climbed into car Number 3. He surely knew how blessed he was to be able to provide well for his family doing the thing he loved. What else but love for a sport–whose allure is lost on so many of us–could push a man with millions of dollars already in prize money and endorsement fees back out onto a smoky, blood-stained racetrack on any given Sunday?
Judging from what Earnhardt’s friends have said about him, he probably would have snickered at the debate over whether NASCAR should do more to protect the drivers who live–and die–for the sport. Among the better suggestions is that NASCAR require its drivers to wear head and neck support devices. Earnhardt was not wearing one when he hit the wall.
Reformers, however, should keep in mind that auto racing is, by design, a deadly game. Asked in a television interview years ago whether drivers were going too fast, Earnhardt took the opportunity to remind the interviewer of the definition of the word “race.” He flipped the question to other drivers: “Do you want to race or don’t you? I wanna race.”
And race he did–better, some say, than anyone ever had or maybe ever will again. The outpouring of affection and respect by Earnhardt fans is something to behold.
The heartache seems most acute in Mooresville, N.C., where the racecar driver’s business was situated. Grieving residents told The New York Times that while they had lost one of their own, they appreciated the fact that he had never forgotten his roots.
About the only things they have left are two things they shared with their hero–a love for a dangerous sport and an understanding that a rich and full life offers everything but guarantees.
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