Being a lifelong racing fan and a fixture in the grandstands at Oxford Plains Speedway was my door into the motor sports media back in 1989.

That membership gradually won my acceptance into a larger, albeit more intangible fraternity: the “racing family.”

Belonging to that clan has offered me friendships, good times and memories without number. And now it’s served me a heaping helping of hurt.

Together with my wife, son, two close friends, a fellow racing journalist and a couple thousand people of like-minded faith in high-horsepower fun, I watched one of my brethren drive a stock car to his death last Saturday night.

It touched off four days that I simultaneously would give anything to forget yet pray to God that I never will.

Admittedly, that doesn’t make sense. Just as admittedly, neither does our attraction to this thrilling, rewarding but undeniably dangerous sport always make sense.

Right now, I’d love to make sense of it all, and I can’t.

Hundreds of mourners packed Saint Joseph’s Church in Lewiston on Wednesday afternoon to say farewell to 38-year-old racer, brother and friend Dennis Dee.

Some wore shirts and ties. Others sported black T-shirts with Dennis’ name and number airbrushed across the chest. It showed what a diverse people we are, even within the ranks of a down-home sport such as auto racing.

It also demonstrated that we’re really all the same. We have but one life to master this side of eternity. It ought to be lived with courage, surrounded by friends.

Wednesday’s celebration of life confirmed that Dennis Dee had no shortage of both.

Some choose to murmur with righteous indignation every time a newspaper or television broadcast matter-of-factly reports the death of a racer. They label the sport foolish and decry each fatality as senseless.

That’s hogwash, of course. It’s the gutless groaning of people whose idea of taking a risk is buying a Megabucks ticket; whose definition of living it up is dumping extra butter on the popcorn before plunking themselves in the easy chair to watch “American Idol.”

Perhaps those people will live a longer life than a handful of racing personalities for whom the attraction ends up fatal. I guarantee, however, that the risks those people will regret at age 80, 90 or 100 will be the ones they didn’t take.

In my research since Sunday morning, I discovered that The Charlotte Observer maintains a database of people who have died in the pursuit of racing. Dennis Dee is believed to be the 310th person to perish at a racetrack in the United States since 1990.

That’s about two dozen each year. Yes, even out of an estimated 200,000 participants and millions of spectators, it’s still two dozen too many.

Look down the list of names and you’ll find men, women and children. Senior citizens and teenagers. NASCAR legends and street stocking weekend warriors. Car salesmen and preachers. Mechanics and journalists. If there’s a common denominator, it’s that none of those souls took a conventional approach to life.

Oh, that more of us would follow that narrow road. Shaped like an oval, no less.

Remembering Dennis Dee provides a welcome opportunity to honor the drivers, officials and spectators who’ve paid the steepest price in their zeal to put a smile on our faces at nearby tracks in my lifetime.

To Bobby Bushley, Steve Stiles, Jim Kane, Kenny Wilkinson, Bruce Kane, Gary Mitchell, Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin and Allen Fletcher: You remain the backbone of a sport that continues to grow and, yes, continues to get safer.

To Ron Jordan, Mike Favulli, Lew Weatherby and others who defeated the odds, even if it meant never climbing back behind the wheel: You are not forgotten, either.

All of you heard a different call and were born with at least a splash of high-octane fuel in your veins. You’re my kind of guys. Brothers, I daresay.

The same goes for Dennis Dee. Many people asked me this week if I knew Dennis personally, and it is with chagrin that I answer no. He is one of the few people who’ve frequented Oxford Plains Speedway in the last decade with whom I never had the pleasure of sharing a joke, phone call or lengthy conversation about nothing. Even in that final detail, he taught me a lesson without even realizing it.

That said, he’s still family.

To a small-town columnist whose closet is full of both black T-shirts and white collars, anyone with the courage to strap into a racecar for my entertainment is nothing shy of a hero. That’s how I will remember Dennis Dee, even as I struggle to make sense of his departure.

Rest well, brother.

Kalle Oakes is sports editor. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].