MILLER: A calculated risk

An Oregon senator demanded it be outlawed, a Florida newspaper asked if it was time to pull the plug, a California congressman called for an end to the madness and Switzerland simply had it banned. Those were some of the various responses to the deadly state of auto racing during the past six decades.

On the heels of Justin Wilson's death at Pocono, an Associated Press writer (Paul Newberry) opined that it was time to shut down this "ridiculously dangerous form of auto racing." It wasn't anything new or revealing, just the latest headline grab from someone looking to get some internet hits and this got legs because the New York Times printed it. Newberry's premise was that compared to NASCAR, IndyCar's mortality rate is unacceptable – even though both series have each lost four drivers since 2000.

True, NASCAR hasn't suffered a fatality since Dale Earnhardt in 2001 and the SAFER wall commissioned by Tony George and HANS Device from Bob Hubbard and Jim Downing are probably the major reasons. But Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin Jr., Tony Roper and Earnhardt were still mourned just like Tony Renna, Paul Dana, Dan Wheldon and JWill.

The debate about whether racing is sport or a modern-day alternative to the gladiators undoubtedly will go on long past this column's expiration date. Ernest Hemingway declared there were only three sports – bullfighting, mountaineering and motor racing – while everything else was a game.

But the country's most popular game has become a helluva lot more deadly than anything on four wheels.
According to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research, sandlot, high school, college and pro football numbered 55 deaths from 2000-2013 directly related to hitting, tackling and their after-effects. Another 147 perished indirectly due to heat stroke, heart issues or other side effects.

In 1963, NASCAR held a race at Augusta, Ga. and within 15 months six of the top-seven finishers in that race were dead.

In 1966, USAC suffered a staggering season as Don Branson, Jud Larson, Jimmy Davies, Chuck Rodee, Red Riegel, Dick Atkins and Ron Lux died in midget, sprint and Indy car crashes.

In 2014, three high school players perished in one week.

America's Game averages 12 deaths a year just in high school and college.

The bottom line is that nobody is calling for an end to football because it's dangerous, exciting and people chose to participate – just like racing.

Tony Kanaan framed it best following Justin's accident. The 2013 Indy 500 winner said nobody holds a gun to anybody's head to drive a racecar and, while everyone is grieving, they're also OK to move on.

"It's something we know can happen every time we get in a racecar and we're fine with that," said Kanaan. "People need to understand we lost a great man but Justin was a racer and he would expect us to keep racing, because that's what we love to do. That's what he loved to do."

And that's always been the mentality because, frankly, it has to be that way.

Back in the lethal 1960s, Formula 1 and IndyCar drivers were dying an alarming rate. A.J. Foyt said they always took a group photo of the drivers before the first race of the season at Trenton or Phoenix and he always wondered how many would be left eight or nine months later.

ABOVE: A.J. Foyt with Pat Flaherty, Troy Ruttman
and Chuck Stevenson at the 1961 Indianapolis 500 (IMS photo)

"If you made it to 30 you were considered lucky," said IndyCar's all-time winner and first four-time Indy 500 winner. "That's why I never had many drivers as close friends – they weren't around long."

In 1960, Parnelli Jones and Jim Packard were up-and-coming stars living in Indianapolis as they headed for a USAC midget race in Fairfield, Ill. They drove over together in Rufus' car but only one of them came back.

"That was a tough night," said the 1963 Indianapolis winner. "Something broke and Jim got killed so I had to bring his clothes and personal belongings back and drop them off to his wife.

"Those were the times that tested you and made you think about what you were doing and whether you wanted to keep doing it."

Bobby Unser's oldest brother Jerry was killed while practicing at Indy in 1959, but he got his family's blessing four years later when he scored a ride at IMS. "I went and told my mom that Parnelli had got me a ride and she went into the other room and cried a little bit. But she came back out and said she was happy because she knew how much I wanted to try it."

Racing open-wheel cars back then required a steeliness that bordered on being almost callous towards death.

"We'd go to Conkle's (funeral home), pay our respects, go have a couple beers and be back in a car the next day," said Unser. "That's just the way it was and we didn't dwell on guys getting killed because it happened all the time."

Jones, who didn't start a family until after he'd quit running Indy cars because of the odds, claims it bothered him more than it probably appeared. "Part if it, sadly, was we expected it because it happened to often. And you can't dwell on it but it's like losing a little piece of yourself every time it happened.

"I guess it looked like we were tough guys on the outside but it was just a very dangerous time and you dealt with it."

How we react to a driver's death nowadays is the biggest difference. Because IndyCar racing has become so safe compared to the '50s, '60s and '70s, people seem almost insulated from the realities and shocked by the consequences.

More than half of Justin Wilson's life was going fast, taking calculated chances and breathing the rarified air of doing something exhilarating for a living. His death didn't have anything to do with the fabric of driving a racecar. It was a fluke and something as random as being struck by lightning.

And it wasn't any more tragic than the Louisiana teenager who died Friday night returning a punt in a high school football game.