OBITUARY - Dale Earnhardt, R.I.P.

The flag at Daytona flies at half-mast in honor of a driver whose final lap in the Daytona 500 was as final as they get. Dale hit the wall at 180 mph, and that was that. A great sport has lost one of its great men; bitter tears must fall.

While we now hear calls for extra safety devices and rules changes that would make the running of races less dangerous, there is no doubt that Dale would want things to go on as they have. While no one (save for the acutely sick) welcomes injury or death, the willingness to risk a trip through the Lonesome Valley in the pursuit of excellence is one of the glories of NASCAR.

It is not the only glory, to be sure. The cars are magnificent machines, capable of producing the power of 750 horses, without a nag among them. Driving these cars at 200 mph in bumper-to-bumper traffic involves the incredible complexity of the human mind and body. But the most glorious aspect of all is the fact that racing represents a total rejection of several negative cultural developments. This fact is quite obvious to anyone who attends a NASCAR event.

Races open with a prayer and a showing of the national colors. Because prayer has now been officially deemed a private ritual, the sight of 100,000 or so bowed heads at a sports event is a reminder of how much religion once infused American life. Pious heads return to earth at the start of the engines. These horses roar. Because sound begets sound, soon enough the audience is roaring as well. This is helped along by the fact that race patrons are allowed to bring in their own alcohol-in great contrast to other professional sports, which not only insist that the public pay for stadiums through tax increases, but mercilessly gouge the drinking public.

This spirit of lives lived full is reflected in other ways. A seemingly large portion of the crowd does not make a fetish of counting calories, and should the lights suddenly go out, the red glow of burning tobacco products would fully illuminate the track and allow the race to proceed. All told, if one were to sum up the environment in a phrase, it would be: Up Yours, Surgeon General.

And that is among the most philosophically sound positions a human being can hold. The obsessive fear of death that mars our age-an age in which members of the wealthiest societies in history fear the sun above, the grave below, and the choicest items in the incredible banquet spread before them-finds no favor with the NASCAR crowd.

In earlier days, parents sent their children to college to learn proper philosophy. These days, they'd be better off sending them to the racetrack, where the wise men, living and departed, teach a simple, eternal lesson: Fear not.

Dale Earnhardt is dead-but only a little.