I voted for [i:0de2fd6c89] Buffy[/i:0de2fd6c89], too.
As long as I'm here in the daily OT thread, I'd like to rant a bit about another story of women in auto racing. Unfortunately, it's not a happy story like the ones about Sarah Fisher I've been passing along.
Deborah Renshaw is a 25-year-old driver in the ARCA stock car series, one of the "minor leagues" that lead drivers into NASCAR rides. She was involved in a horrifying freak accident this past week during practice for a race at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte NC. Another driver, Eric Martin, spun out and hit the wall. His car was sitting there on the track for about 10 to 15 seconds when Deborah came along and slammed into it. She's just been released from the hospital, where she had to have four pins inserted into her broken left ankle and foot. Eric Martin was killed instantly.
What I couldn't understand about this wreck at first was why Deborah was still driving at full speed so long after Martin's crash. I'm used to the Indy Racing League - where Sarah Fisher drives - which uses a set of warning lights all around the track and another set of warning lights that are actually installed on the drivers' steering wheels. In stock car racing, all they have is a "spotter" watching the track and talking to the driver on the radio, and apparently Deborah's spotter had a blind spot in his field of view - he couldn't see the crash, so he didn't warn her about it.
Then I started reading more about Deborah Renshaw, and I found out that she's already had a rough year. She had been running in a Late Model series (another minor league) over the summer and had a chance to win the title, but the men she was driving against conspired to get her disqualified. They pooled their money and paid a guy to finish behind her in a race and then file a protest against her. What the heck is up with that? I still haven't found the full story.
Anyway, the disqualification incident caught the attention of a NASCAR car owner, who was planning to take Deborah to the NASCAR Busch Series (sort of like NASCAR's triple-A minor league) next year. The owner says he's still going ahead with his plans, but now others are questioning Deborah's abilities and wondering if she can really handle the pressure of driving so fast on such big speedways.
Personally, it sounds to me like Deborah got caught in a horrible but highly unusual tragedy. NASCAR is already changing its rules so something like that doesn't happen again. Deborah's foot will heal in time, but I worry about her having to live with what happened and having to live with what's being said about her, things that will continue to be said. She's definitely someone I'll be watching very intently when the new Busch series season starts in February.
If you'd like to read more, here are the articles from
ESPN and
Yahoo! Sports. And if you wouldn't like to read any more, I'll end my rant now and return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
by Warduke » Fri Oct 11, 2002 6:42 pm 
