Last Wednesday evening, my son, Joshua, and I were heading to his favorite seafood restaurant. He was happy because he had had a good day at college, and was talking to me about it. I wasn’t hearing every word, because I was deciding whether to go straight at the next red light, or turn right. Either way would take us to the same place, so I was debating the pros and cons of each choice. Finally choosing to go straight for no other reason than we hadn’t gone that way for a while, I headed through the intersection.

We were in my beloved ‘baby’, otherwise known as our ’06 Chevy Cobalt. Rally Yellow. Only 5340 miles on it. We took great care of it, even covering it up sometimes for weeks in bad weather. Had an accessory on the front of the car called a ‘bra’. Kind of a kinky name for a car accessory, but fitting, as it was black and had netting on it. It jazzed it up nicely (as a black bra with netting has a tendency to do with other things besides cars).

Perhaps two-thirds of the way through the intersection, there was a tremendous bang, and suddenly I wasn’t thinking about Josh, his happiness, or whether or not I would order shrimp scampi or crab linguine. I was suddenly wondering what that horrible sound was, why my chest was hurting, and how I ended up sliding straight into a car head-on. The first thing I clearly saw once the car stopped was the female driver of the black car we had just been pushed into, and she was angry. I didn’t have to be an expert on body language to know that this woman was exceedingly unhappy about this turn of events.

I could not empathize with her, however, because my chest was hurting so badly. And how was Joshua? After asking him that very question, and hearing him say he was okay, I was back to clutching at my chest.

We had been hit by a man driving a pickup truck, who neglected to notice that his light was red. He wandered up to my window while we waited for the ambulance. He looked like someone had sucked all of the blood out of his body, then dipped him in white paste for good measure. He said something to me, but I didn’t comprehend it. The next face I saw was my Dad’s, who worked just down the street. Then it was the ambulance, and the emergency room.

After all was said and done, we were treated and released. Joshua is fine. I have a concussion, despite not hitting my head on anything (“Your brain slapped the inside of your skull, and brains don’t like that”, I was told.) I have a really outrageous bruise on a very delicate place on the right side of my chest, and a less-impressive one on the left side leading up to my shoulder. Both bruises are from the seat belt doing what it was meant to do: stopping me from flying headlong into the dashboard and/or windshield. (I have no animosity toward my seat belts for such damage; in fact, I am ever so grateful.) I have a large bruise on my right shin, that I don’t even remember being in contact with anything. All of my muscles in my back and neck hurt. It has been nearly a week, and I am finally feeling a little like myself. But I found out when I took the wheel of my husband’s car to go out Monday evening that I am extremely nervous driving. A trip to a nearby town seemed endless; my heart was pounding, and I was perspiring. I was so glad to get back home.

Seeing the hard impacts during Sunday’s Cup races were very difficult to sit through. I physically and mentally winced with every replay. As the cameras focused on the faces of the drivers who had been in those wrecks I realized I could now understand a little better what they must be feeling.

But I quickly checked that with the following analysis: the collision I experienced was only with a car doing 25 mph, being hit by a truck going 50 mph. I can’t imagine the experience if it were four times that.

_{This photo doesn’t look like much, does it, com-
pared to some NASCAR race wrecks?}

As Tony was helped from his car and was limping away, and as Jeff stood by his car obviously weak-in-the-knees, my heart was pounding for them. There were other drivers who took big hits last Sunday, as they do on many race days.

I now have much more empathy, compassion, and admiration for these drivers. Most of them have experienced much, much worse, and more often than anyone outside of a racing career could ever expect to have. And if they have any fear about getting back behind the wheel for the next race, they don’t let anyone know about it.

It is truly amazing.