Sacred Silence

It’s tempting to talk about what was supposed to have been Sunday’s but ended up being yesterday’s Coca-Cola 600 340 ½ in terms of the interminable rain delays.  Or how Billy Bad Butt was first immortalized by Tony Stewart’s comment only to have the last laugh when David Reuitmann’s pit strategy gamble paid off and he was in the lead when NASCAR finally decided Mother Nature could have the win and called it a day.  Instead, I’d rather talk about when nothing happened.

Nothing at all.

Silence at a racetrack happens only on off days when there’s no maintenance or janitorial work taking place.  Not on a race weekend.  Certainly not on race day.  Yet there it was.

Silence.

For a moment, all the snarks about how NASCAR talks a good game when it comes to patriotism but in fact is all about the racin’ and beerin’ were forced to hang their head and stub their toe in the ground as in the middle of a race the race itself came to a halt.  There was no accident to clean up, no weather to wait out.

There was nothing.

Nothing at all.

Nothing other than silence.

A moment where everyone, participants and rain-soaked spectators alike, joined together in the faraway stare as they thought about the ones no longer here who in becoming that way enabled we who are here to be that way.

NASCAR is at its heart as all sports are, a fantasy playland where we watch those who do what we know we cannot yet in our imagination do right alongside them.  It’s Disneyland at one hundred and eighty miles an hour; an escape from reality, a mini-vacation where we set aside our and the world’s burdens for a few hours in favor of cheering our heroes, booing our villains and gleefully allowing how they perform to dictate our thoughts, moods and actions.  Then we pick reality back up right where we left it and go on.

Sometimes, though, reality intrudes.

Yet yesterday’s intrusion was most welcome, as NASCAR paused to bow its head and honor the greatest sacrifice in the only way possible.

Silence.

Sacred silence.