Jason Leffler

Race car drivers, and those who work and live with them, are more aware of mortality than the rest of us.  They also know to tuck that awareness deep in the recesses of their minds and forget.  If they did not, no one would return to the track after the tragic loss of a friend and colleague.  Last night, one of those moments confronted the worlds of NASCAR and IndyCar.  Jason Leffler, Lefturn as they referred to him, died while racing a sprint-car in Bridgeport Raceway in New Jersey.  In a heat race, where he apparently was in second place, Leffler's car slammed into the turn four wall.  Air-lifted to a nearby hospital, he as pronounced dead at 9:00 p.m.  Within one hour of the wreck, Twitter posts started appearing for @JasonLeffler and #Lefturn, first as requests for prayers for Leffler and then as notes of concern for his family.  NASCAR.com has stayed on top of the story and collected a sample of the posts.

Leffler had made a mark.  Coming out of California, he did not cut a familiar NASCAR swath.  For that matter, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, and Jimmy Johnson, among a host of other drivers, do not come from the Southeast or the highly cultivated moonshine mystique.  But like the others, he climbed the ranks as a USAC champion and made it to the "bigs" of both NASCAR and IndyCar.  Like many others, his career stalled and though he had a  competitive spirit he lost the third car seat at Joe Gibbs Racing after 21 starts for the FedEx team, the car now driven by Denny Hamlin.  His final Sprint Cup race was last weekend at Pocono where he finished forty-third.  But along the way he had raced at the biggest venues and with the greatest drivers of his generation.  In his death, they were reminded of their fragility.

Parker Kligerman@pkligerman4
Race car drivers immortality is a way of life. 1 day we find 1 of us 2 be mortal is a day in which we struggle 2 comprehend @JasonLeffler

Kligerman's Twitter post highlights that strange place between believing oneself to be "immortal" and being reminded that one is not.  In the years since Dale Earnhardt, Sr.'s death on the track at Daytona, NASCAR has worked to make the cars and raceways safer.  Drivers have continued to suffer both injuries and deaths, but more often these events have occurred at tracks like Bridgeport and off the national media radar.  Last night, one of their own died doing what they all love to do.  And through social media we all got a glimpse of that reminder of mortality and the shift to bury it once again.  With Nelson Pique, Jr., all of us who love watching cars go fast and drivers defy most odds can say:

Nelson Piquet Jr. ‏@NelsonPiquet
Racing is unfair sometimes....  Rest in peace Lefturn!

Breaking for Easter

Before the teams and drivers of NASCAR head to Martinsville this weekend, I thought it might be time to revive this blog with a post about NASCAR, Easter, and Mother's Day.  As part of my research about the effects of automobiles on the South, I have noted that since preachers were among the first to adopt the "new" technology they were rarely in a position to condemn the cars themselves, as a destroyer of family and community values.  Instead, preachers often placed the blame at the feet of drivers and their poor behavior.  At the same time NASCAR was gaining traction in the South by the mid-1950s and competing on Sundays as the post World War II revival was underway, preachers worried about speed limits and the rising number of auto related deaths.  When they complained about NASCAR, they lamented the added distraction to a growing number of distractions for Sunday observance.

In an interesting move, NASCAR gave drivers two Sundays off that might have riled southern Christians more than any other: Easter and Mother's Day.  Yesterday was one of those days "off" for the Association's three top series.  In the South, like other places in the U.S., the two high attendance Sunday's are Christmas and Easter, in that order, unless Christmas day falls on a Sunday and then the Christmas Eve service takes the top spot (at our church: Christmas Eve service always wins).  The season is over before Christmas, so only Easter has to compete.  And as the movie Thunder Road asserted, even bootleggers listen to their mommas when they are in their mother's presence, particularly if she is religious.

It appears to me that NASCAR's gift to the teams has less to do with teams and more to do with their fan base, who likely would have to listen to momma fuss if their true loyalties were revealed on Easter and Mother's Day.  In the fight for cultural dominance, the two giants, the Church and NASCAR, made peace and break for Sunday on those two days every year.  After resurrection and celebrating momma, it's back to racing.