Columnist Ron Kantowski: Priestly’s crash course in racing

Thursday, Aug. 15, 2002 | 9:48 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's insider notes column appears Tuesday and his Page One column appears Thursday. He can be reached at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

What is it about the rich and famous and fast cars?

It used to be that guys with a little notoriety and a lot of cash were content to tool around in brightly colored sports cars that end in an "I."

But add lots of free time to the equation, and sometimes the need for speed extends beyond the new car showroom and onto the racetrack, where the miles-per-hour -- and the ramifications of exceeding them -- are far greater.

That's a reality that Jason Priestly is now dealing with. Or at least will have to deal with soon, once the pain-killers wear off.

The 32-year-old actor who played Brandon Walsh on "Beverly Hills 90210" is lucky to be alive following a head-on crash at Kentucky Speedway Sunday. Walsh lost control of his 180-mph Indy Infiniti Pro Series racer during a practice session, overcorrected, and plowed into the concrete retaining wall. He suffered a significant concussion, a broken back, two broken feet, a broken nose and multiple facial lacerations.

It was a huge price to pay for a not-so-cheap thrill.

Priestly was lucky, in that doctors expect him to make a full recovery. It remains to been seen whether he'll return to the track, though at the moment, chasing girls with his buddy Luke Perry might seem like the wiser alternative.

In a remarkable coincidence, Priestly is one of three Hollywood types featured in a piece called "Star Turns" in this week's ESPN The Magazine. The subhead says that neither he, Hollywood stuntman Stanton Barrett (NASCAR Busch Series) nor Catherine Zeta-Jones double Leilani Munter (Allison Legacy Series) "is a Paul Newman -- yet."

Newman is the man by whom all celebrity racer wannabes are measured. Even at 77, he remains competitive in endurance racing, and many in the industry have said he might have been a star in the sport, had he started at an earlier age.

During a recent appearance on the "Late Show with David Letterman," Newman told the host (like himself, a car owner on the Championship Auto Racing Teams circuit) that driving a racecar at or near its limit can be a sensual experience.

That may partly explain why showbiz leadfoots are drawn to auto racing. Others who have run around in fast circles include Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, James Brolin, Gene Hackman, Craig T. Nelson, Motley Crue front man Vince Neil and the late country singer Marty Robbins, who traded in his "White Sport Coat" for a Daytona 500 driving suit.

"Some people are born with the temperament where they have a need to increase their general arousal level," said Chris Kearney, a UNLV psychology professor. "Some people do it (thrill-seeking) for sensory enforcement -- a rush.

Kearney said males tend to engage in auto racing and other adrenaline-pumping activities to satisfy a biological need. "Others do it socially -- working real hard at the job, being aggressive, or it can be a sexual thing," he said.

Priestly, it should be noted, took his racing nearly as seriously as the guys who do it for a living. But others believe he bypassed a couple of rungs on the feeder series ladder in his haste to achieve his stated goal: driving in the Indy 500.

Of course, nobody was saying that very loudly until Priestly rolled his racecar into a wad of carbon fiber.

So maybe it's the sanctioning body -- and not Priestly -- which should be shown the black flag.