Do you know what the number one spectator sport in America is right now?  Nope, not football, not baseball, not soccer.  Well, if you didn’t know, it’s auto racing.  You might even know it as NASCAR.  The growth of the sport has been nothing less than phenomenal in the past decade or so, although auto racing is nothing new.  It’s been around as long as we’ve had automobiles. 

            And today, the race is, well, I don’t want to call it safe; because nothing you can do at 250 miles an hour is really safe.  But it is unbelievable how drivers can hit a wall at top speed, literally demolish their car, and get up and walk away.  But of course, sadly, not always, as we learned from the death of Dale Earnhardt a little while back.  Racing is a huge risk - one that drivers willingly accept in order to race, and get to the rewards of the money and fame. 

            But I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that racing hasn’t always been as safe as it is now.  There for a while the racecars were anything but safe.  Take for example a race that you have probably never heard of, but in its day was the big Kahuna of the racing world.  It was called the Vanderbilt Cup Race, named after the wealthy man who first sponsored the race.  But back in those days the technology for making the cars fast was much more advanced than making them safe.  Such men as legendary drivers Barney Oldfield and Chevrolet (yes, there really was a Mr. Chevrolet.) had automobiles capable of 140 miles an hour, but didn’t even have a seat belt in their car.  No roll bar or cage, no shock absorbing material around the driver, no fire retardant clothing, no hard crash helmet.  Nada! 

            And you might guess there were injuries and deaths.  Too many, to be honest.  And that’s what killed the Vanderbilt Cup Race, the fact that too many people were getting seriously hurt or killed.  In its day, it was the biggest auto race, not only in America, but in the world.  From 1904 until 1910, hundreds of thousands of people would come to see a single race.  And that was the problem.  The real problem. 

            You see, It’s A Little Known Fact that there were also no safety measures for the spectators.  None.  They would just stand alongside of the raceway or road and watch the cars go by at 140 miles an hour.  No barriers, no hay bales, no ropes or concrete walls to separate them from speeding racecars.  It wasn’t the death of the race drivers that got the biggest auto race of its day cancelled for good.  No indeed, it was the hundreds of deaths and injuries of the spectators standing alongside the track that did in the race, and set auto racing back for nearly 50 years, until measures were taken to protect the spectators.

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