Dirty Air: Heart of a Driver

Back in May, NASCAR lost one of its most beloved figures in Kyle Busch — which for many fans and media who cover the sport, has been a hard pill to swallow. Even three months later, it still invokes feelings of pure disbelief and shock.

The sport of stock car racing is no stranger to death. But it has been 25 years since a driver passed away on the track. All the credit is due to NASCAR for safety developments they have constantly been making that nobody has died behind the wheel since Dale Earnhardt’s tragic accident in the 2001 Daytona 500. But, untimely as it was, Earnhardt’s death changed the sport for good.

I have little doubt that Kyle Busch’s, even if it was not the result of an on-track incident, will do the same thing — and maybe not just for the NASCAR world, but for men’s health in general.

Kyle Busch had one thing in common with Dale Earnhardt besides being a polarizing antihero with a super competitive spirit. Please don’t stop reading for being offended if you were a fan of them; I mean no disrespect to either. But, both Kyle and Dale Sr were stubborn to the point it directly led to their own demise.

I am a man and am not afraid to admit it. We men are a naturally stubborn breed. We say teens and young folks don’t want to listen. But, that is a trait that men, for whatever reason, never grow out of. Race car drivers take that to a whole new level.

It is a fictional example, but nonetheless one that you are probably familiar with. In Days of Thunder, Robert Duvall’s character — the wily veteran crew chief Harry Hogge (based on Harry Hyde) experiences the trauma of his former driver Buddy Brotherton dying in a crash at Daytona.

Buddy’s story was loosely based on Bobby Isaac — who famously decided to park the car and quit in the middle of the 1973 Talladega 500. He did the same thing four years later while racing in a late model event at Hickory Motor Speedway, collapsing on pit road shortly afterwards. He later died from a heart attack attributed to heat exhaustion, but before passing away, he is said to have told a friend the reason he got out and called for a relief driver was because he heard a voice telling him to get out of the car.

Harry claims that Buddy heard voices saying the same thing and he was afraid to the point of losing his competitive edge. The same thing happened to Tom Cruise’s character, Cole Trickle. After suffering a concussion trying to floor it through ‘the Big One’  when his rival Rowdy Burns intentionally wrecked him at Daytona, Cole succumbs to fear and intentionally blows his engine the next time he races at Atlanta.

After facing his demons and overcoming fear of getting hurt again, Cole does what drivers do — he got back behind the wheel. Why? Because Rowdy asks for Trickle’s help due to circumstances that are oddly relatable to what I am trying to say about drivers in this column.

Rowdy had a brain tumor that he was ignoring the symptoms of. Headaches, doubled vision, memory loss. The man could not even identify the Winston Cup trophy when Cole confronted him about going to the Doctor. Of course, it was a beautiful young Doctor (Nicole Kidman) that opened Cole’s eyes to the reality we all ignore.

We are mortal. We all know we are going to die some day, and part of human nature is to fear your own mortality. But we have to move on and face it. For men, facing that fear is hard. We think about the burden on those we would leave behind — something rooted in fragile masculinity that believes our only role is to be the provider, and if we can’t do so, we fail our family.

We dwell on the fact we will never be able to do what we love again. We fear the unknown surrounding death. Even Jesus Christ, being God, knowing that He came to die for us, and that He would rise again, was anxious about being beaten and crucified the night he was arrested.

Death is scary. But arguably, the only thing more terrifying is knowing that you will not be able to provide for your loved ones. Which, in the case of NASCAR drivers, makes for an even more curious question.

There are few things more risky to do for a living than strap into a race car and drive 180 miles per hour for 400-500 miles, toeing a thin line between being able to control where it goes and absolute chaos with 35 other drivers doing the same thing. So, why is it so hard for a race car driver to simply walk away?

Rowdy Burns did not want to visit a doctor because he had a plan for the future. He wanted to retire and build a new house across Lake Norman and ride around on a boat. But he had to keep driving to save up for that life. In order to keep his ride after having to step away to recover from surgery, he had to ask Cole to drive for him in the Daytona 500.

In a more real-life example, Dale Earnhardt was no stranger to stubbornly rejecting both mortality and modern safety advances. Dale obviously knew that driving a race car carries a ton of risk and he was afraid to acknowledge that and the possibility of death behind the wheel. So much so that when Adam Petty — grandson of “the King”, passed away at age 19 after a hard crash at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on May 12, 2000, Earnhardt was stricken to the core.

Kyle Petty recalls that Dale avoided going anywhere near him or making eye contact with him for nine months afterwards, eventually finally being forced to confront him the fateful day Dale was killed.

Dale was always one to laugh at safety advances. He notoriously wore an open face racing helmet with bubble goggles. When Brett Bodine decided to give the HANS (Head and Neck Support) device a try in the wake of the deaths of both Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin (who was also killed at New Hampshire in July 2000 in a practice session), Earnhardt called him a name I dare not repeat.

Dale came from a different era in the sport. The cliche is to say “They don’t make them like that anymore!” Or “Today’s drivers could never!” Fans carry a ton of nostalgia for an era that we all look back on with fondness defined by drivers simply being built different.

You have heard the stories. But if not, here are some examples. In the 1965 Southern 500 at Darlington, Cale Yarborough clipped another car and careened up the banking, flipping over the guardrail, and landing hard in the grass below. He miraculously survived with no injuries.

During 1984 Speedweeks at Daytona, Ricky Rudd had a violent crash in what was then known as the Busch Clash, flipping over several times. He suffered a concussion that caused his eyes to swell completely shut. Rather than miss the 500, he disregarded all safety and raced with his still-bruised eyelids literally duct taped to his forehead so they’d stay open and allow him to see.

A year before his historic first win in the Great American Race, Dale Earnhardt crashed in the 1997 Daytona 500 in which he barrel rolled through the backstretch infield grass. Despite heavy cosmetic damage to the car, Dale noticed that the engine was not dislocated, all four tires were still attached and inflated, and the car was driveable. So rather than retire from the race and take the ambulance ride to the care center, he demanded they let him get back in the car and finish the race — which he ultimately did after a lot of body work in the pits.

Kyle Busch lost control of his car in the February 2015 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Daytona and slammed head on into a section of the inside wall that did not have a SAFER (Steel and Foam Energy Reduction) barrier on it at over 90 miles per hour. The collision broke both his right foot and left ankle, meaning he had to be rushed to the hospital. Rather than accept that he would have to miss nearly a quarter of the season, he was demanding surgeons fix him up that night so he could get back in the car the next day for the 500.

Of course, that did not happen and Busch did miss nearly three months, but NASCAR made an exception that allowed him in the playoffs and he went on to win the Cup championship.

In short — NASCAR’s athletes (yes, they are…) are defined by a grittiness and determination that I can only call “the heart of a driver,” and despite what a certain portion of the sport’s fanbase may say, today’s drivers have that same sense of determination and toughness.

Drivers from Dale’s generation didn’t know anything other than to tough it out. Checkers or wreckers. They did not care about modern safety advances that they felt were not only bulky, speed-diminishing, uncomfortable, and unnecessary, but also invasive. While he never said as much publicly, if Dale were asked whether or not the HANS device and full coverage helmets should be mandatory, he would have been likely to say it was wrong for NASCAR to force things like that on people.

Ultimately, Dale’s refusal to embrace the HANS device led to the same kind of death that rattled him so much nine months before — a basilar skull fracture from his head lunging forward into the steering wheel on impact with the wall. In the wake of it, the sanctioning body made the HANS device and full helmets mandatory, required tracks to have the SAFER barrier, as well as regulated the use of safer seats with more head restraint — a change that made the sport better in the long run by preventing any further avoidable losses of life.

Dale’s generation does have one more thing in common with today’s drivers: the sport is hard to get into and easy to suddenly find yourself out of. It is difficult to get a full time ride in NASCAR — especially at the Cup Series level. But, if you should somehow “luck” into one of the 36 seats in the field, it does not take much lack of success for sponsors to bail or owners to decide to move on from you (or heaven forbid, both). For many drivers, the reason it is so hard to get out and walk away from racing has more to do with the job/livelihood aspect of it.

The mentality is similar to a man refusing to go to the doctor when he is sick because he fears missing work and not being able to pay his bills. That fear doesn’t just loom over NASCAR; it is at any job. Nobody is above replacement. For many who view their job as their whole life, everything becomes about keeping it. There is paranoia in knowing that nobody is above replacement. So, for many drivers, the mentality is simple — “the only way someone is taking this ride from me is if I die in it.”

That is not a healthy mindset. But, as a man, I can testify it is one many of us have. It is another flaw that comes with mortality and being human. But it is that same mindset is exactly why we no longer have Kyle Busch.

Kyle began to show signs of respiratory illness the weekend the Cup Series was at Watkins Glen in early May. He had a cold but rather than rest and take some time away, he continued to juggle his racing career, coaching his son Brexton (who is an up and coming racer), and continuing to work with the foundation he and his wife Samantha started to benefit families experiencing infertility.

To Busch, that busy schedule was just life as normal — but like the character his nickname derived from (Rowdy), he had a plan for beyond his time racing. Kyle was going to run another season and then focus on being there full time for his son as he continues to learn race craft. Like Burns, Kyle felt he had to keep going to make that happen.

A week after initially racing through the upper respiratory infection, Busch noted his symptoms had not subsided and that he had a substantial cough. He ran another race while ill, and four days after that, Kyle collapsed in a racing simulator, later to be declared dead at the age of 41 after being admitted to the hospital.

Busch had so long shrugged off his symptoms or going to the doctor because he felt it was just a simple cold. But, the reality is that the infection led to pneumonia that had progressed into a bacterial infection that became septic.

Men, we have all done it. I recently tried to ignore the intense pain in my side that I knew was from a kidney stone because I didn’t want the medical expense. It got to the point I could not take it anymore and had to. But I have also been so (in retrospect), selfish and stupid as to go to work knowing I had symptoms of the flu.

We have all ignored the obvious signs of trouble because, like these racers, we felt we were tough enough to handle it. We have been stubborn because we value what we think makes us manly. But, sometimes, the most manly thing we can do is have the humility to admit when we need help.

It is not easy to admit. On top of being stubborn, we men, like the drivers, have a sense of pride that is part of that “heart of a racer.” Sucking it up and admitting you are wrong to yourself is just as hard as it is when that person you dislike proves you wrong on a heated subject. But, as the Bible says — “Pride comes before destruction and a haughty spirit comes before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).

If anything you take away from reading this — better yet, if any world changing lesson we learn from losing Kyle Busch, let it be that it is better to be safe than for your loved ones to later be sorrowful.

If you feel pain — physical or emotional, or if you feel like something is not quite right with your health, please do not hesitate to let someone know. Talk to someone you trust. See a doctor. Don’t shrug it off. Your life is something you should not play around with. Be tough. But also be smart.