| | Associated Press
LOUDON, N.H. -- There is no half-staff for a checkered flag. It's all or nothing in auto racing: qualify or not, win or lose, and once in a horrifying while, life or death.
Drivers received an unwanted reminder of the danger they face when Adam Petty, the fourth generation of NASCAR's first family, was killed during practice for the Busch 200 at the New Hampshire International Speedway.
"It's tough, but we all have a job to do. We have to block out what happened and go out and do our jobs," said Randy LaJoie, who crashed in Saturday's race into the same wall that claimed Petty the day before.
|
FUNERAL SERVICES
SET FOR MONDAY
|
|
TRINITY, N.C. (AP) -- Funeral services for Adam Petty, who died Friday while practicing for Saturday's Busch 200, are planned for Monday. Services are set for 11 a.m. at High Point College.
The private ceremony will be opened to close friends and
members of the NASCAR community, Petty Enterprises said in a
release Saturday. Members of the Petty were not available for comment on Saturday.
Kyle and Adam's sister, Montgomery, were on the way to an equestrian event in Europe and had to be called back home. His
mother, Patti, and another brother, Austin, were at home.
As the shocking news began to spread, more than two dozen
bouquets of flowers were left outside the white brick gate at
Kyle's home.
One of them was a single white rose in a plastic container left
by Michelle Harris. She attached it to a photograph taken last
Sunday of her and Adam on the golf cart.
"The thing I really hate is that he never got the chance to
race against his dad," she said. "The only comfort is that he
died doing what he loved."
|
LaJoie walked away from his car, but track officials said he briefly lost consciousness and he was taken to the hospital as a precaution. A CAT scan was negative, and he was released later in the afternoon with seat-belt bruises.
"I've always thought that the man upstairs had a plan for everybody," he said before the race. "And when it's your time to go, it's your time to go."
Petty brushed the wall in Turn 3 at 130 mph on Friday as he prepared for qualifying, spinning out and smashing sideways into the concrete. The red-and-blue No. 45 Chevrolet did not catch fire, but Petty was trapped inside for about 20 minutes before rescue workers cut through the roof to free him.
The 19-year-old driver was taken to Concord Hospital, where he
was pronounced dead of head trauma.
"When you go out on the track, things can happen," said circuit chaplain Eddie Robison, who led the drivers in a memorial service for Petty before Saturday's race. "Today, and this week, they're more aware of that than ever.
The walls were painted over to erase the signs of Petty's crash, but skid marks still scratch across the 1.058-mile oval nestled among the hills in New Hampshire's Lakes region.
"It makes it hard when you see the skid marks," LaJoie said,
before adding his to the collection.
There isn't a driver on the track who hasn't at least brushed
the wall at some time or another, sometimes in a terrifying burst
of flames and other times in crashes that, like Petty's, don't look
all that bad.
"I've missed opportunities to hurt myself," said LaJoie, who
slammed into the wall last month in Talladega, Ala., where speeds
reach 200 mph. "That car was probably wrecked worse than Adam's,
and I played golf on Monday."
Petty was remembered with a moment of silence before the U.S.
and Canadian national anthems, and in an invocation when the Rev.
Tom Coots offered a prayer for the Petty family.
Winner Tim Fedewa said it was difficult to climb into his car.
"But at the same time, you don't think about it. Adam wouldn't want us to think about it," said Fedewa, who survived a course-record nine cautions, from the very first lap to the last.
"Adam was watching over everybody," Fedewa said. "I believe
that in my heart."
Many at the track wore black ribbons, including Todd Bodine's
wife, Lynn. Their daughter, 2-year-old Ashlyn Marie, wore a sticker
that said "Adam Petty, 1980-2000" along with his car No. 45.
"Obviously, that's all we've all thought about," said Lynn
Bodine, whose brother-in-law, Geoffrey, was nearly killed in the
truck race at Daytona in February.
"He shouldn't have walked away, and he did, and he's wondering
how come he's here and Adam's not," Lynn Bodine said. "I guess
when you get involved in the sport, you know what the dangers are.
But when it does hit, it hits hard. And it hits every family in our
community."
Bodine knows something about racing families. In addition to
Todd and Geoffrey, another brother, Brett, graduated from the dirt
track in their hometown of Chemung, N.Y., to the NASCAR circuit.
But there's no racing family like the Pettys. The late Lee
Petty, Adam's great-grandfather, was the circuit's first superstar;
Adam's grandfather, Richard, is NASCAR's career leader in
victories; and Kyle, Adam's father, also has won on the Winston Cup
circuit.
"You can't find a stronger group of people, and you can't find
a family that has contributed more to the sport than them," Lynn
Bodine said. "They have been here since the inception of NASCAR."
Drivers might talk about racing as a job and say that they are
safer on the track in their reinforced steel cages than in the
family car on the highway. But when crashes happen at excessive
speeds, they can be devastating: seven NASCAR drivers have been
killed since 1989.
"It kind of brings you back down when you see things happen
like yesterday," said Jason Jarrett, the son of Winston Cup
champion Dale Jarrett. "You always believe it can happen, but you
don't expect it to happen."
Jarrett said he has talked to his father about what they would
do if "something like this" happened to the other.
"I know my dad feels the same way," he said before the race.
"He would want me to go drive."
Jason Jarrett hit the wall between Turns 3 and 4 in lap 127.
He walked away.
| |
ALSO SEE
Driver Adam Petty dies after Busch practice crash
Weber: A loss beyond the track
Petty family goes from glory to tragedy
Grief evident in Petty's hometown
 |
