Along the Way: Racing balances risks with rewards

This rocket on wheels streaks down a drag strip and explodes in a ball of fire, killing the driver, 46-year-old Scott Kalitta.

And a lot of people shake their heads and figure the fans at Old Bridge Township Raceway in Lishtown, N.J., got what they came for.

Blood.

I used to feel that way about racing. But how many times on the evening sports report, have you seen an Indianapolis 500 type racer or a stock car disintegrate into postage stamp-size pieces and the driver walks away?

You figure there’s no way on Earth the guy could live through such a wreck. But more times than not, he does.

And the point is, not only do these incredibly fast machines push the physical limitations of engineering for speed, there is a constant effort to develop safety devices to prevent race-related fatalities.

Sometimes — too often, in fact — the driver doesn’t walk away. They pick him up with a spatula and talk about what a wonderful ol’ boy he was. Vendors start selling ball caps bearing the number of his race car emblazoned on the front.

But the push for safety that almost always follows, eventually filters down to ordinary citizens in ordinary vehicles.

We don’t drive 220 mph — I hope. Or try to make turns at 180 mph.

But safety awareness and safety devices on the race track find their way to Main Street, America. Not to mention Continental Road, La Canada Drive and Camino del Sol, Green Valley.

Scott Kalitta was a veteran National Hot Rod Association driver with a million fans, maybe more. He was out there on the race track trying to win money, not to promote safety.

But the builders of funny cars, the type of machine Kalitta was driving, will scratch their heads, take out their slide-rules and find ways to make them less likely to blow up.

And at the Ford plant, at General Motors, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda and wherever cars are built, somebody will be inspired to make the machines we drive to work, to church, to the soccer fields and to grocery stores, safer.

I wouldn’t go to a drag race if you paid me. I don’t like NASCAR, either, or care much about the Indy 500.

Racing makes no sense to me as a sport. You drive real fast and turn left. What else is there?

Oh, and it’s a waste of fuel at a time when the rest of us have to conserve.

But hold on.

The R&D, the research and development at the race track, has made life a whole lot better on Main Street, Continental, La Canada and Camino del Sol. Nobody knows how many lives have been saved by some tweak in a seat belt, by some braking innovation or roll-bar idea.

Thank goodness we don’t have to go watch races. It’s just as much fun soaking up beer on your patio as in the bleachers at some hot and dusty speedway.

Just the same, the crazies who go there and the crazier ones who drive there, are part of a force, an energy, that eventually comes up with ideas on vehicle design that help us all.

When I see a golf cart puttering along our streets in Green Valley, I see the future. That’s how we all should be commuting — with electric power or solar power or alfalfa power. Whatever.

We must end our dependency on gasoline from countries who (a) want us wiped off the face of the Earth and (b) until then, gouge us to the point of poverty.

And as long as we have a Congress dead set against us drilling for oil within our own borders and off our own shorelines, we have to come up with a better way to power our cars.

Hybrid engines are a start. Electric golf carts may be even better.

And when we reach the point that either or both have virtually replaced our gas-powered cars and SUVs, you can bet on one thing:

The race-car drivers and the drag-strip rocket cowboys of the land will be doing their thing behind hybrid engines and electric motors.

Mechanics will find a way to make them run fast as a bullet, people will gather in huge crowds to watch drivers race like bats out of hell.

And once in a while, a driver will wind up like Scott Kalitta.

You don’t like it? Don’t watch.

But the racing industry makes a contribution to all of us, even out of the occasional tragedy that strikes it.

Former Tucson Citizen columnist Corky Simpson writes a weekly column for the Green Valley News.