He had to get away, from what he wasn't sure. The telephone, perhaps. It had brought him news that he described as "bad, bad, bad -- it couldn't have been worse." 

Even 24 hours after receiving word that his precious friend Shelly Howard had been killed near Tulsa in a bizarre and violent testing accident in her Top Alcohol Dragster, a crash that also claimed the life of her son, Brian, Tate Branch had trouble absorbing it.  

"I just got the drag paper and it's got me and Shelly's picture in there and a picture of us in the winners circle," the Top Alcohol Funny Car driver said, remembering their recent Division 4 victories at Houston. "I mean, it's just weird. That's the first race she's won in over a year – I think. But she's happy there. It's a great picture of her – she's smiling and all cheery." 

Maybe he had to get away from that image. "My heart is broke. I can't describe how," he had tried to explain. 

So he headed down the road by himself, crying inconsolably.

Branch talked with Shelly Howard probably once or twice a week: "We had a lot of business dealings." 

He and wife Kandi became parents on Valentine's Day of their third child, daughter Marleigh, who struggled in her first few days with breathing problems. And during his walk, Branch was overcome with memories of Shelly Howard, a registered nurse and their rock during those dark days. "When we had Marleigh, and all the bad things happened with that, she was the first one to call and find out things. And every day she'd call and check on us. She was just that type of person," he said. 

"I don't know why it happened," he kept telling himself. He didn't know that over in San Diego, his friend Ron Capps, the nitro Funny Car driver, was asking the same thing: "Blaine and Darrell and Shelly . . . God just takes these people. Why is it always the most caring?" Capps would have had no answer for him.  

But Tate Branch wasn't necessarily expecting answers. He just couldn't believe that Shelly Howard was gone, the Shelly he knew who, along with physician husband Paul, helped so many people, medically and financially. 

He thought of track announcer Lynn Nickerson, who had been diagnosed with throat cancer. Nickerson's prospects looked bleak without insurance, but Shelly and Paul Howard arranged to bring him to Tulsa, where Paul persuaded some of his colleagues to help and Shelly took care of him at their house for two weeks afterward. 

"Shelly was very, very family oriented, and she'd do anything in the world for anybody," Branch said. 

And his already tender heart sank when he recalled something that she had said to him that weekend at Houston. 

"She was talking to me about my little girl, Marleigh, and about how she's doing, and that she's praying for me," Branch said. "And she said 'If something ever happens to me in this car . . . my handicapped child – I don't know who could take care of him. Nobody can take care of him except me, and that's my biggest fear. If something happens to me, who's going to take care of my child?" 

Brian Howard, 36, had contracted meningitis as a baby, and the illness affected his mental development.  

Shelly had shared the same concerns with Capps. "She was always worried that if something happened to her, would Brian be taken care of," he said. "That was always in the back of her mind. To me, she always seemed like the motherly type, always asking if you're OK and if there's anything she could do for you. Just being a nurse, that showed how caring she was. From the core of her heart, she cared about everybody around her." 

Said Branch, "She's with him now. She's takin' care of him. It's scary almost, because what happened is so freak. The chances of that happening are one in 20 million. It'll never happen again. 

"It's just weird how God works. I know things happen for a reason," he said. "It's like He knew her concern. It was her time to go, and so she doesn't have to worry about her son Brian now. She's taking care of him." 

Both  Branch and Capps said if any part of this tragedy could be considered positive, that might be it. 

But positive thoughts of Shelly Howard, now that was easy for Tate Branch and Ron Capps. The three of them and Funny Car driver Tommy Johnson Jr. had acted last winter in drag-racer-turned-screenwriter/producer Grady Bryant's film The Legend of Booger Red. Bryant had come up with another script and wanted the Booger Red cast to perform as a team again. 

"We had a lot of good memories from the movie," Branch said. "Shelly was strictly business. It was hard to break the ice and see the real Shelly. I feel I knew her better than most of the racers because I talked to her so much.  But she was very protective of the real Shelly. I got to see the real Shelly when we did the movie. Ron Capps and TJ – we'd all mess with her and get her to laugh and cut loose." 

Capps called her "a little, quiet, polite -- the most darling little thing you could think of. She was just a sweetheart," although he conceded he was glad he didn’t have to race against her. 

He remembers her playing the role of saloon-hall vamp "Miss Prissy" in the movie and how she was a tough cookie, never complaining that she had to recite her lines in some of Texas' notoriously nasty winter weather. "It was raining and sleeting and almost snowing, and the rain and sleet were blowing sideways," Capps said. "And she had to wear that skimpy little dress. She had to be freezing. But she was worried about how she looked in the dress. At the premiere in Dallas, we were all complimenting her, telling her how good she looked and having fun with her." 

Branch said he often shared "good talks, serious talks" with Shelly. And he saw her passion for racing. 

"She was very competitive, very, very serious about racing," he said. "She loved the sport, she was worried about the sport, but she voiced her opinion and didn't care who heard her. She wasn't politically correct. She was adamant about things she believed in. I admired her for that.

"Even if she offended some people," Branch said, "she'd tell you how she felt, and I always knew where I stood with Shelly. She didn't pull any punches."  

He said when they won at Houston and shared the winners circle, "that's one of the only times that she was all smiles, and she came up and hugged me, and she had tears in her eyes, and we signed autographs, waiting in the winners circle for about a half an hour. And every fan, she was just so happy – I haven't seen her so happy in a long time." 

Said Branch, "I loved her. I'm going to miss her terrible." 

So will Capps, he said, because he knew her from his NHRA alcohol-racing years before racing for Roger Primm and the Prudhommes and Schumachers.

Though Capps knew Shelly and Paul well enough to help them polish off steaks or barbecue in their pit at the races and Branch knew the Shelly behind both the comedy and tragedy masks, Top Fuel driver David Baca spoke for many racing fraternity brothers when he said, "We are all family in this sport. I raced against her when I drove an alcohol dragster. When an accident like this happens, we all grieve because she was one of our own." 

Howard is survived by her husband, Dr. Paul Howard, and daughters Jennifer and Tracy. And she leaves a lot of racing friends who don't quite know how to process their loss. 

"Right now," Branch said, "I'm not excited about racing, and I'm not excited about going to Houston because it's not the same. It'll never be the same. But I know if it happened to me, I'd want her to go on racing. There's some special meaning now." 

That's something Branch's four-year-old son, Houston, must have known. 

"I was praying and I was crying," Branch said, "and he came up beside me and said, 'Daddy, it’ll be OK.'  

"I didn’t even know he was there, and I asked, 'Well, Bubba, what are you doin'?' He knew what had happened, and he knew something was wrong. He knew Shelly – he called her Miss Prissy, because of the movie – and Shelly always teased him and played with him.

"He said, 'It's all going to be OK,' and I said, 'I know that, Houston,' " Branch said, "and we walked and talked a bit. As we were walking back to the house, he said, 'Daddy, there's only one thing we can do.' And I said, 'What's that, Bubba?' "

Said four-year-old Houston Branch, looking up at his dad, "We got to win this race for Miss Prissy." 

Houston Branch meant the national event at Houston Raceway Park, the track that had inspired his name. 

Tate Branch might be thinking of another race. The one at which he hopes to hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant." That's the one Shelly Howard had set before herself.