The purpose of this Essay is not to point out the evil or sinfulness of stock-car racing as much as it is to point out the foolishness of this so-called sport. As we all know, the reason why these goofs, knot-heads, racers, or whatever you want to call them, crawl, and I mean crawl, into their souped-up, shining and gloriously “new” chariots, skid, and that word is also non-exaggerated, around in a filthy, dusty circle for a few minutes, is because they have no other way to express themselves. Oh, they say they’re after that pot of gold that sits at the end of their whirl – our gold, that is, if we attend – but I’ll come back to this in a minute.
What a thrill! – and it ought to be for one dollar or more. And the noise! I don’t think I have ever heard more racket in my whole 19 years of existence, except maybe when it’s Christmas time at Wurzburg, especially on 6th floor. The crowd goes wild when one car, if we may call it that, gets in the way of another, goes crazy if another unavoidably joins them, and stark-raving mad if another adds the cherry to the sundae by comfortably locating itself atop the whole mess. But, if it isn’t the crowd, it’s the crates they tear around in. I, personally, don’t know what they put into those motors – it sounds like the same stuff they put in jets. They putt around the track once, I guess to make sure their cars will run, then just as soon as they get to the place where we’re sitting, they all simultaneously put the accelerator all the way down to the floor and they’re gone – physically and mentally.
At one time, I had the disadvantage of talking to one of these, shall we say, drivers. He was a long, scrawny, stretched-out looking character with a couple chipped and rotten teeth protruding out of his upper jaw and three or four more pushed every which way on his lower jaw, which isn’t so odd, I suppose; he looks like any other abnormal, typical all-around stock car driver. He told me that the track was the safest place to be – and perhaps it was, at that time, for when he told me, there wasn’t a race going on.
But really, what draws us to these places, what makes us scream with excitement and I might add with joy, when these drivers take such foolish measures to almost tempt death? For instance, a driver gets into his car and rides through a so-called wall of fire just to get a lot of “Oh’s” and “Ah’s” and “Oh, Man’s” out of the crowd, and of course, money. I think we all know why we attend these things. Because God has created us perfect, giving us the will to do all things without error; and when man fell he turned his back completely around to look instead at destruction, for he knows he can do nothing to perfection, so he wants to see how much he can destroy. But let this not be an excuse for us. It is not for us to see the world fight outwardly this inward struggle, for due to our sinful nature we also have this struggle. But we have the new man in us; we need not become puzzled and confused and resign to methods such as this to comfort ourselves. The world cannot conform themselves either by these means, as hard as they may try. Now can’t you see the foolishness of the world? Throwing themselves into their cars, half-killing themselves and sometimes whole-killing themselves, to try to win a victory to their inward struggle? Oh, no, they won’t admit it; they might say – “We do it for the money, or for the praise the public gives us, or we want to watch them because it’s exciting.” They’re fooling no one but themselves.
In conclusion, young people, let’s think twice before running off to the races next time. Are we fighting the same battle as the world?