auto racing

If you were to summarize the past few weeks of NASCAR driver Ryan Newman's 2008 season, it would come down to off-track issues rather than on-track performance. In fact, it would come down to three words: choices, choices and choices.

When many people think of NASCAR, they think of moonshine runners turned racers, rowdy fans and "The King."

When Billy Mauldin thinks of NASCAR, he thinks of the same things -- but likes to put it all in the context of the "King of Kings."

Steve Peterson, one of NASCAR's key officials, a veteran engineer whose work in safety areas the past 10 years have made stock-car racing safer than it's ever been, died unexpectedly Tuesday at his Concord, N.C., home, at 58, apparently of natural causes.

It all began a half century ago when a son, determined to follow in his father's footsteps, crawled into the cockpit of a stock car and decided to go racing.

And race he did, winning 200 events, capturing 127 poles and finishing in the top 10 more than 700 times.

A photo that ran on the sports front of my paper this week was telling. It showed a whole lot of empty seats at Daytona -- and Daytona doesn't normally have a whole lot of empty seats at a NASCAR event.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- So what happened to Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the final miles Saturday night?

He appeared ready to win the Coke Zero 400, or help teammate Jeff Gordon to victory lane, but Earnhardt got trapped in traffic late and suddenly faded from contention.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- As the saying goes, "Where there's smoke, there's fire."

That was certainly the case 10 years ago along the east coast of Florida.

TITUSVILLE, Fla. -- Ryan Newman never dreamed of being an astronaut. A racecar driver, that was always the thing.

There's a bit of irony in that he became a NASCAR driver nicknamed "Rocketman."

What a bummer.

Not Kurt Busch's win. Crew chief Pat Tryson had a good strategy, Busch won fair and square and the rest of the stock-car racing hot dogs all simply beat themselves by pitting for gas just before the clouds opened at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

A lot of folks will agree that Mark Martin is probably the greatest NASCAR driver to never win a Sprint Cup championship. And when the diminutive pilot from Batesville, Ark., decided he was going to become a big league part-timer to spend more time racing pickups, it appeared his "close, but not quite" legacy was secure.

Maybe not.