4/8/04

Photojournalists
On Fire!

These print-media guys look harmless enough in a posed photo. However, minutes after this 1997 image of (L-R) Cole Coonce, Sky Wallace, Dave Wallace, Ron Lewis, Jeff Burk and Gary Nastase was shot, all heck broke loose at an upscale Arizona eatery. (Tom Mott photo.)

he scary report from Gainesville about English-photojournalist Andy Willsheer's broken leg served to remind members of the media that there are dangers to our chosen profession, however remote. I mean, what are the chances that my old Cockney pal would nearly be neutered -- or worse -- by a chunk of loose ballast?

A "freak" accident (no offense, Andy!), to be sure, but aren't they all when someone other than a driver is victimized? My close proximity to racecars began with my first drag-strip job, at age 10. Well, it wasn't a "j-o-b," exactly; my father was the track photographer (among other things) for San Fernando (Calif.) Raceway. When Dad mentioned, one Sunday afternoon, how helpful it would be if someone were beside him to apply the pink goop to each piece of exposed film that was manually ejected from the track's Polaroid camera, I volunteered before he'd finished the sentence.

Within an hour, I found myself on the starting line, with nothing but 15 feet of dirt between the fuel dragsters and me. Not more than 20 feet behind me, on the fire-up road, another pair of fuelers was approaching from the opposite direction -- sometimes at insane speeds, because the guy controlling the push car's speed was invariably the racecar's owner, who wanted that motor to fire in the worst way. (Never mind the frantic hand signals coming from the cockpit, mere inches from the push car's grille.) I know that Dave Senior recognized the danger, because he warned me that first day, "If you walk in front of anything out here, you'll probably get killed." Whatever- to a 10-year-old, sudden death seemed like a small price to pay for all this excitement.

I managed to survive to the ripe old age of 18, every Sunday except Easter and Mother's Day, without suffering a scratch. Ditto for all the other starting lines and finish lines I've been fortunate enough to visit over the past 44 years: My body has never been pierced by shrapnel, nor flattened by a support vehicle, nor struck by something exiting any of the well-prepared Jerry Darien diggers that have thundered past me since the 1970s.

I was nearly set on fire once, come to think of it, but not until 1997, and not until after I'd left a racetrack. Who knew that a reunion dinner with some of my old print-media colleagues, at one of Phoenix's fancier restaurants, would have catastrophic potential? My brother, for one: Sky Wallace, repeatedly reminded me of his long-ago vow against ever breaking bread again with this particular group. Unfortunately for him, I had the rental-car keys, and Chandler, Ariz., is one long damn walk from downtown Phoenix, where we were staying. Besides, he's my little brother. (You lose, Pal.)