I went to my first NHRA drag race 15 years ago to write about an upstart California driver named Blaine Johnson.

Pungent fumes, deafening roars and earthquake-like vibrations ricocheted off Sonoma, Calif.,’s blazing-hot track, making a first impression that no sport can match.

Same goes for the second impression: Johnson died a year later in a 300-mph crash. His Top Fuel dragster’s engine blew near the finish line at the NHRA’s Indianapolis event. He was 34.

Drag racing’s risk of fatal accidents makes for an unavoidable topic heading into the FRAM Autolite NHRA Nationals this weekend at Infineon Raceway.

This season’s third fatality at an NHRA event occurred Sunday, when Mark Niver, 60, died from a crash at the Northwest Nationals in Kent, Wash. The other deadly incidents claimed driver Neal Parker, 57, in a June 11 crash in New Jersey, and spectator Susan Zimmer, 53, from a stray tire that flew off Antron Brown’s wrecked dragster Feb. 21 outside Phoenix.

And yet the show goes on, race after race, with life and death on the line each time those starting-tree lights turn green.

Cory McClenathan won Sunday’s Top Fuel category in Washington. He also won the fatality-marred event in Arizona.

Go back further and there’s this eerie coincidence: McClenathan raced in the neighboring lane on Johnson’s fatal ride in 1996.

“(Team member) Lee Beard could see I was really struggling the year Blaine died,” McClenathan said Wednesday. “Lee told me, ‘This is a defining moment, dig deep, get in that race car and try to win it for him.’”

McClenathan used that same motivation Sunday after Niver’s accident.

“You really have to stop and focus on your job, grab the ear plugs, put the iPhone on and get in a good place,” McClenathan said. “That’s the one thing you learn as a veteran driver. These things can be lethal.

“I’ve been in some of the worst accidents. I’ll see a replay and can’t believe I walked away from it.”

Such is the case with his 2006 qualifying crash in Connecticut, when his dragster snapped in half midway down the track.

Two NHRA drivers were not as lucky in ensuing years, as Eric Medlen died in 2007 and Scott Kalitta in 2008. NHRA responded with increased safety measures, such as shortening the track from a quarter-mile (1,320 feet) to 1,000 feet after Kalitta’s crash.

Niver lost his life Sunday when his Top Alcohol dragster slammed into a catch net in the shutdown area. Among those in attendance was McClenathan’s daughter, Courtney, a 19-year-old college freshman.

“It really struck her hard,” McClenathan said. “She woke up late at night this week and we sat down for an hour to talk. She was upset.

“She understands I’m not ready to get out of the car yet.”

McClenathan says only about 25 to 30 drivers actually race on the circuit for a living, others doing it as a hobby or by region. He has been at this for 25 years, and he envisions racing a few more years.

After that, he might work on the sport’s business side or mentor young drivers. Or perhaps he will finally pursue his ambitions to become a veterinarian back home in Indiana.

“I really love driving a race car. I’m an adrenaline junkie at heart,” he said. “It’s one thing to jump out of a plane, which I did a few years ago. I love the free fall and the feeling of peace and harmony. Driving a dragster is the same. Once you start it, it’s under my control. It’s mine.”

Back in 1995, Johnson sounded just as enraptured with life in the proverbial fast lane. He had won four consecutive Top Alcohol championships before jumping up to the Top Fuel class in 1994.

“There was not really any goal when we started,” Johnson, a Santa Maria native, told me in 1995. “It was just like, ‘We’re going to go racing, and whatever happens, happens.’ We got better and then started to go faster.”

Alas, speed kills. But it also thrills. Such is the NHRA’s impossible balancing act.