A sickly silence fell over the press box. Richard Petty walked away with a minor ankle injury. But now Adam, Richard's grandson and the fourth-generation extension of a racing legacy, is gone. But IRL driver Sam Schmidt, who crashed during testing at Orlando, Fla., in January with less fury, is paralyzed. The answer is that, despite safety advancements, something can always go wrong at 220 mph, or even 120 mph.
Tires blow, throttles stick, suspension parts break and drivers err.
A famous name doesn't make a race driver indestructible. There were brushes with death. Lee, who died of natural causes at 86 last month, flew off the 31-degree banking at Daytona in 1961 and landed 100 feet away. Richard once broke his neck. Kyle, Richard's son and Adam's father, broke his leg at Talladega, Ala., in 1991 and missed 12 races.