Tragic Night at Knoxville

I have been writing about racing for thirty-one years now and for the first twenty-four of those I never witnessed a fatality at the track and therefore I never had to write about one. In the seven years before last night, I was in the stands when terrible accidents took the lives of Keith Hutton and Steve King, and in both instances I chose not to write a column for Hawkeye Racing News on the event. I felt the same way this morning after learning of the passing of Kansas Midget driver Chad McDaniel after a crash late in the feature race at the Knoxville Raceway. I am not a journalist, I don't write articles with researched information and facts. My columns are my thoughts and observations from my location in the grandstands, and that is it, and when I see someone lose their life in a racing accident, I feel like the rest of what went on that night, good, bad or in between, doesn't really matter. I still feel that way today and while I did start to write a blog this morning to talk about the win of Sammy Swindell in the Masters Classic and the fact that no other driver will likely ever pull off the Chili Bowl/Masters double in the same season, and that Tracy Hines was the eventual winner in the Midget feature, it just didn't feel right. So with that, please know that my thoughts and prayers are with the friends and family of Chad McDaniel and, like the too many other drivers who have passed before him, we will assume that he would have wanted racing to carry on just like it will tonight at the Knoxville Raceway.