This weekend, I overheard the announcer at Bristol say, in so many words, that Larry Dixon's next run will be something you don't want to miss, and I could tell from the tone and 40 years of spectatorhood that it meant "Crash." What did I, the man who had learned his lesson from all the witnessed near tragedies and a couple of real ones, do?

Well, the crowd was a non-car grouping and they were mostly watching the "World's Strongest Man" competition or some such cultural watershed event. I could tell they were into it, leather hot pants, zippers in back. Well, anyway ... it's not what they did, it's what I did.

"Hey, leave it there for just a minute, don't change the channel. You're not gonna believe this." (Now I'm billboarding the mother for Crissakes!)

Sure enough, Dixon undergoes a horrible experience and survives (survives in fact to race the next day. You talk heroic!) and, unknowingly, I probably created two new fans for the sport. This guy and his wife were in their late 40s and hadn't been to a drag race in decades. The Dixon crash lit a fire under them. Do they still hold them out there? I know Pomona has a show, but is there weekly racing like that?

The "like that" made me wince a little, but, hey, it was my (and I say this Kramden-equely) "MY BIG MOUTH" that helped fire them up. The hand-wringing sign quietly rose like a Bad Moon behind this dull-witted inebriate.

I had a half dozen more El Patrons, hopped in the old Silver Cloud, got in the diamond lane and drove home in reverse, looking back on the day's adventures, mulling it all over.

Time to pass this experience into the out bin, as I continued a cadence of left hooks to my now bloodied and bruised jaw. Auto racing is one of the sports where the ultimate is the

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issue. People are fascinated by death, hurt to unbearable sorrow when it strikes too close, but nonetheless lured to it with the passion of someone frantically looking for an unused john. There is no acting, no sleight of hand; it is to, borrow from the former World Heavyweight champ, Evander Holyfield, "THE real Deal."

No profundity here, but I think we'd agree that the two most important things in any life are its birth and death. Those are the two "must haves." Most cannot be a party to this first one, except family members and hospital, if you're lucky, personnel. The other one you can have any number of witnesses, millions of them. Willing witnesses to see "the big event" or the possibility of one.

I decided the Bagleys were like names to be drawn out of the hat. Dixon's stayed; theirs came up. That seems so shitty, but anyone intimately involved with racing will tell you, the racers and -- in the case of the Bagleys -- spectators, know what they are getting involved with. I suppose I could get all vainglorious and self-righteous and say, well, enough's enough. But to what end? People get killed playing high school football.

I don't know. I guess what I'm saying is that I wish I wouldn't get jacked up for something that has the potential to jack you so far down.

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