I’ve known Doug for years. You know, Doug [came] up to me and said his son was a big fan, and he thanked me for giving him a hat and whatever it was I gave him years ago when he was little. He said, ‘My kid loves you. He roots more for you than he does for me.’ And what happened was … I lost my Mom and Dad, but you expect that. To lose a child, I can’t imagine …

Nobody can help you expect somebody who’s been through that. Herbert called me within a few days of that. And I said, ‘We’ll pray for you.’ … But Herbert, his children, his got another little one; he’ll have to live for her. There’s no way I can say … I know that he’s working for charities, with the foundation. … He’s just the best guy, and all we can do is gather ‘round him.

You’ve got to get through it in your own way. I’ll be honest: I don’t know if I could’ve handled it. I just … I won’t go there. But it screws my head up.

Posted by Brian T. Smith

I know Doug really well. I knew his youngest pretty well. It’s just gut-wrenching. I can’t imagine what he and his ex-wife went through.

That’s why it’s no different than when we lose a driver. Every week, we’re with these people more than we are our families. Whether it’s restaurants or golf outings or charity events or autograph sessions. And then you see kids like that … it’s just wrong. It shouldn’t happen. It makes you re-evaluate your faith. What purpose could this possibly have? Why would God want to take them away? But evidently, there’s a bigger plan that none of us know about – you would hope. But it happens every day. You try not to let it affect you. But when you’re close to someone like that, it can’t not affect you.

One of the biggest kids I try to teach to my kids right now is: you guys are race car drivers. So the minute you get a driver’s license or you start driving with someone who gets a driver’s license, the first thing they want to do is say, ‘I want to take you for a ride in my fast car.’ They always want to push you. They want to show you how good they are or what they can do, or they want you to show what you can do. It’s like peer-pressure or it’s like drugs. ‘Look, this drug didn’t affect me, try it.’ I and try to tell them, ‘Look, we do our stuff in a controlled environment. That’s where we do it. You don’t do it on the street.’ It’s dangerous enough with all that in place. But if you do one thing on the street and you lose control and you kill a kid, or you go into a house or you hit a tree, you’re never going to be able to live with yourself if you hurt someone else. You can’t let that happen. And all you can do is try and preach to them as much as you can and hope it sinks in. But we’ve all done stupid things.

Posted by Brian T. Smith

We saw [his sons] almost every weekend. We watched them grow up. I used to have a lot of fun with the little one all the time. You just always saw them. You knew they were there. It was cool, just cool. As I told Doug many times in the past couple months here, I feel really badly for him and what’s happened. He’s been a strong person with it.

I think he’s moving on and going forward and embracing it. He’s done a lot of good things because of it. I think he’s taking up that challenge on behalf of his kids to try and not let that happen to any other kids.

It is a family out here. We pretty much live together almost 10 months out of the year, so it is a big family. You have your ups and downs with everybody as time goes, but when things go tough for someone, everybody rallies together. And it is a family, no matter what. It’s a very small world.

Posted by Brian T. Smith

My boys knew everybody. They’d walk around and they knew … Kenny Bernstein … Schumacher … So it’s been tough. And I think, for a lot of them, it’s been tough on them, too. Because they knew them. I mean, they’re friends with them. I mean … you know … can I imagine getting through it? I guess so. If my life … my life would be different if I didn’t have the racing. Because that’s my hobby. But it’s also kind of like a family out here, too. And every race that we go to is kind of like the first race, because I see people here that I see in Bristol every year. And I see people in Pomona that I see in Pomona every year. So every race, every weekend, it gets a little bit easier to talk about, because I have time to think about it. And it’s kind of like when it very first happened, the edges were very sharp. And then after a little while, the edges kind of get a little bit rounded off and it gets a little bit easier and you try and make sense out of things. We’re doing the program called B.R.A.K.E.S. for kids, and that’s been a help. I talked to a group of kids down here this morning … just about driving safe. The teenager driver is the most important component of the car, because they have more control over the outcome than anything to do with the car, anything to do with anybody else and they’re the most important thing – I think that maybe opens their eyes a little bit. So I’m just trying to do what I can do and deal with it the best that I can and try and, if we can, make something good come out of it by helping other kids, too. But as far as getting by without drag racing; drag racing is part of my life. I like it. My boys like it. I don’t … in fact, I’ve got pictures of the winner’s circle here at Bristol with both of them. So I mean, this is a fun place. This is a special place.

Posted by Brian T. Smith

The weather is holding out and the crowd is still filing in.

Good atmosphere here at Thunder Valley today. Non-stop qualifying on the strip. Accessible drivers and crews throughout Nitro Valley. And a diverse crowd is taking it all in.

Posted by Brian T. Smith