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Racer Weekly Issue 2: The French GP and More...
by Dan Dectis
Well this week we had the French Grand Prix. And although that is the biggest thing in mainstream motor sports right now I feel compelled to write about something else that has been bothering me.  First off, I'd be willing to bet that less than half of you know
who Rolland Ratzemburger was, or what track he died on for that matter. On the same token I'd be willing to bet that close to 90% of you know who Ayrton Senna is, and for
that matter what track he died on, what day, and what turn he died on. So what then is it that makes Mr. Senna's life, gifted as he was, so much more important than that of
Rolland Ratzemburger. But I guess I'm going to fast, Rolland Raztemburger died the same weekend that Senna did although you rarely hear his name mentioned when people talk about Senna's death.
So now back to the question at hand, what has made Senna's life more important than Ratzemburger's? Perhaps it is the fact that Senna won races and championships and got
the good cars to drive, but doesn't that crack down to fate? What if Senna was stuck on a back marker team perhaps his skill wouldn't have shown up as much? And on the same
token, what if Ratzemburger had been driving in that Williams that day when Senna died, could we be talking about Ratzemburger instead?
Although you may be surprised there is a reason for this madness, a point for all this drivel. What I'm getting at is every year many racers die and yet many times we don't even know that they died because
no news agencies say anything about it! How many of you have heard of Bob Gagliardo? I'd guess about 10% of you. Bob was killed in an accident at Mosport Park in a Trans Am race this year. And do you
know what, it didn't even make the main page of Speedvision.com. Why? Why I ask, this man gave his life, albeit unwillingly, for our entertainment and we can't even put something in remembrance of him on a
web page that covers all forms of motor sports. Now they can't claim they had no knowledge of the incident because I watched that race LIVE on Speedvision. This man died for a hobby, died so we could
have 1 hour of entertainment at high speed. We don't even give him the time of day. The story showed up, but it was deep in the bowels of the Speedvision news section.  I guess what I'm getting at is the fact that if a racer dies no matter how miniscule his racing
efforts may have been, his death is no different than that of the greatest driver in the world. There is simply no difference, both died because of the same passion, the passion to be
quicker than the guy next to him, And they got killed because of it. Consider this, if 2 rock climbers are climbing and one is doing it for a hobby and one is professional and both die,
you'd damn well bet we'd see them both on the 10 o'clock news. And that's another thing, what makes the death of a NASCAR great
any different than the death of a sports car legend. What I'm getting at here is when Dale Earnhart died it was ALL over the news for weeks! Then Michele Alboreto, 44 year old racing great, died do you see
one thing on any major news station? Well perhaps something small but nothing near the magnitude of what happened with Earnhart. The fact remains, a man died, he DIED for our enjoyment. These men
should be celebrated, not cast into the chasms of racing history to be uncovered years in the future in a column much like this.
Just something to think about the next time a club racer gets it wrong into a turn and loses his life and we never hear about it. Click Here to talk about this article on the FantasyCars.com MessageBoard!
Click Here for more great racing articles by Dan Dectis in the RacerWeekly Archive! |
