As a mother and a woman who loves racing, having a child in your family race is not a bad thing. Racing keeps more families together than any other sport that I can think of. You will find not only wives, husbands, moms, dads, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, even grandparents at the track in the pits but a lot of neighbors and co-workers.

Parents, especially mothers, do not look at their children racing as sending them out for certain death on that track. The odds are that you will be just fine but every now and then, the unexpected does happen. Then, it brings out people like Mr. Gearan who writes totally tasteless articles about nothing he knows one thing about and tries to tell us that he knows how we feel especially us mothers. That, is probably one of the dumbest statements ever made.

As parents who have children who race and probably got that racing bug from us, we all have our fears. I was told that last Saturday night I wore a hole in the pits from pacing from one side to the other when my daughter raced. I would watch her on the frontstretch and run back so I could see her on the backstretch and therefore, everyone teased me that I was putting a hole in the road. But that was my baby and standing still would not have worked and I got thru it.

I think that every parent has that fear in them when their son or daughter is on a track and age has no bearing on that feeling. Kyle Petty had a fear in him no matter if he was a Winston Cup driver himself or not, that was still his son and it was there. But we as parents cannot protect our children from life and if we hold them back from trying what they really want to try, we keep them from ever flying.

Kyle Pettty and all racing parents, support their children l00%. Adam knew that, my daughter knows that. There are many worse things that our kids could do than race and I am thankful that my daugher would rather be at the track with her extended family than out running around and getting into trouble.

--By Jane Smith

Have an opinion on this story? Post a message on our Message Board!
or send a letter to the editor!