Dirt-Track Racing Roots

Canandaigua Motorsports Park on a Saturday night in upstate New York 

The place to be with Grandpa and Daddy and maybe a cousin or two.

 

Settle into the rusting bleacher seats, a squashed hotdog and bun half devoured

When motors rev and fumes fill the lungs, time to hold Daddy's hand: It's starting!

 

Jump from the stands, race to the fence, and wish you were one of the drivers

Speeding by (crashing even) in the dust-swirled air that is stock-car racing of my youth.

 

But Saturday night, August 10, 2014, the lights went out on this childhood dream 

"Tony Stewart just hit that guy!" someone shouts. The investigation starts. I will not believe.