In the Field: Elliott Sadler (cont'd)

I was so proud of NASCAR for letting us put Virginia Tech stickers on our racecars last weekend at Phoenix and for the next couple weeks.

And so the three of us, Jeff, Denny and I are going to sit down and try to figure out what's the best thing that we can do to give back to the school and make something good come out of this.

Sports world helps Virginia Tech cope

As the sports world reaches out in different ways to show support for the victims of the Virginia Tech tragedy, former NASCAR director of programming and Virginia Tech graduate Elliott Gordon appreciates the overwhelming support.

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We're thinking we're going to try to do something around the Richmond race weekend, because Richmond is also in Virginia and that means we'll have a lot of Virginia fans who will be there, and can get involved.

As I say, we don't know what -- but we're going to do something. We want to make sure we do it the right way. Richmond's close, but it gives us enough time to do something the right way, which is important to all of us.

The fact that we'll be in Richmond, means a lot to all three of us. It means a lot that it will be in Virginia, because all of us have friends that went to that school.

Denny and I were talking and he still has a lot of friends who are at Tech. That's just the way it is, in Virginia.

With me being from an agricultural part of the state, and Tech being an agricultural school -- everybody went there. I have a lot of family and friends who went there, a lot of friends at home right now that went to Virginia Tech.

My best friend played football there and my girlfriend just got her diploma from Tech. A lot of people I know are involved in that school in a lot of different ways, so it's been tough -- but it makes us want to have a part in the healing process.

We want to do something.

We all know we're Virginians. When we got out to Phoenix last week, as soon as Jeff Burton and I saw each other -- all the way from across the garage area -- we just started walking to each other.

We didn't have to talk, we didn't have to give a signal -- we pretty much walked up to each other and the first thing we said was that we needed to do something as a group, as the Virginians in Nextel Cup racing.

Then we got Denny involved. So we hope to have something in place that we can talk about, soon; because we just want to be a part of whatever's going on.

Again, I can't say enough to send my condolences out to the families involved in this tragedy. It's such a shocking event to have happen, and where it happened -- in Blacksburg, of all places.

It's hard for me to put into words, what those families are going through. Nobody can possibly imagine it, and so we want to send our regards and hope that everything comes out OK.

And we'll have more to say about what we're planning when we can do that more completely.

Elliott Sadler, now in his ninth full season in the Cup Series, shares weekly with NASCAR.COM readers life on the road through staff writer Dave Rodman.