God Dammit!

I've said it a million times: the most dangerous thing Race Car drivers do isn't drive around a track at 200 miles and hour, it's flying from track to track in small jets. Yet again a plane with a NASCAR connection has gone down. This one was carrying the husband of Leesa France Kennedy,a member of the France family that founded NASCAR, and daughter of NASCAR president Bill France Junior, who died just last month. That's a lot of sorrow to endue in one summer.

The plane was owned by a France family company. There hasn't been an on track death in NCACAR's three major series since Dale Earnhardt Sr. died in the Daytona 500 in 2001, but there have been three NASCAR plane crashes (counting the one that almost took Jack Roush's life) and fifteen NASCAR deaths (more once the victims on the ground in to days crash are counted).

Of course it's not just NASCAR. Payne Stewart, Bill Graham, Corey Lidle, Thurmon Munson, Billy Ray Cyrus, Roberto Clemente, going all the way back to Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper: the need to hop around in a small airplane or helicopter to get from one performance venue to another creates an amazing amount of risk. And this week at the track there will once again be a moment of silence, there will be tears for yet five more members of the NASCAR community gone down, and there will be sorrow. And there is really little we can do about any of it. Dammit!