In 2024, let’s not take for granted racing’s living legends

As the race shops and racetracks of the world begin to fill up with the racket and noise of crew members working and the roar of preseason testing, before we stand on the loud pedal of the 2024 motorsports calendar, let’s take a moment to pause and make ourselves a quiet promise to keep in the year ahead. Don’t take for granted the people who are still here with us.

Over the holidays, auto racing lost a pair of driving titans. The first was on Dec. 29, when Indy 500 and two-time IndyCar champion Gil de Ferran died at the age of 56, suffering a heart attack while behind the wheel during a private racing event in Florida. All one needs to know about the universally beloved Brazilian is what he did with his final moments of life. Sensing something was wrong, he was conscious enough of his worsening health condition that he pulled off to the side of the raceway, using his last bit of strength to find the brake pedal and ensure the safety of his co-driver, his son.

Only two days later, New Year’s Eve, NASCAR Hall of Famer Cale Yarborough died at the age of 84. Last fall, when we began revealing our NASCAR 75 Greatest lists, the first of those top-five compilations was Toughest Drivers. Determining the top spot of those rankings was the easiest decision we made all fall. Yarborough, winner of three Cup Series titles, 83 races and four Daytona 500s also survived — and all of this true — a poisonous snakebite, a lightning strike, falling 20 feet out of a tree and onto his head, bouncing off the ground after a parachute didn’t open properly, and holding off an angry bear with one hand while flying an airplane with the other. He also walked away from a crash at Darlington Raceway when his car jumped the guardrail and tumbled down an embankment into the parking lot, as well as his legendary flip while qualifying at 200 mph in 1983.

The last lengthy conversation I had with Yarborough was in 2020, not long after the passing of Junior Johnson, aka the Last American Hero and Cale’s car owner for all three of his Cup Series championships. We talked about this very topic, all the crazy stuff Yarborough had survived and the fact that while he definitely spent some time in the hospital, he never once…