This is a guest post by Lissa you can follow her on Twitter @supahlissa
RIP Dan Wheldon
Most people seem to be comparing Dan Wheldon’s death to the death of Dale Earnhardt, Senior. Like with the Dale Senior crash, I didn’t see the crash when it happened. All I got to see was the reaction. When someone said something on Twitter about putting the car under the yellow tarp, I knew something was wrong. From my experience, the only time something like happens is if a driver is killed in the car.
I was sicker than a dog the day Senior died, but I remember three things. I remember seeing both Tony Stewart‘s barrel and thinking, albeit a bit snarkily, “Someone’s going to die today with how these crashes are going.” I turned on FOX after the race, and caught them mention Senior’s crash, and then seeing them talking to Mikey. I don’t know what it was exactly, but something about the way he acted and the way he talked made me say, out loud, something to the effect of, “Oh no. Senior’s dead.” Of course, I used words that can’t be used on this blog.
The comments from Tagliani jumped out to me the same way MikeyWaltrip’s did. So did seeing seeing the reaction of some of the other drivers, especially their body language. Something was not right. And, no, I do not mean seeing Danica crying, even though that amped up the bad feeling, too.
They called first a small group of drivers, and then all of the drivers, in to an impromptu drivers meeting, and more rumblings came that he was dead. I was talking to my friends on Twitter, and kept on telling them, and myself, to be positive and think positive thoughts. But, the feeling of doom was still there. The drivers meeting ended, and you could see it. The hung heads.The teams in prayer. The consoling hugs. The camera shoved in Tony Kannan’s face, where you could how much he was crying, and then showing Jimmy Vasser giving him a consoling back rub. It was all one giant red light saying that what I feared happened did happen.
Then, the announcement. And, while I could always say that it was a shock, it really wasn’t. I slammed my hand against the wall in anger, partially at the fact that he was dead, and partially because of how similar it was to when Senior died in 2001. And I was near tears, too, because Wheldon was a driver I liked.
I’m not going to lie: I don’t watch IRL often. I had gotten in to it for a while, back when Jacques Villenueve and some kid named Tony Stewart raced, and the FIRST time Paul Tracy was in Indy cars. I’ll watch the Indy 500, and one or two indy car races here and there, but not anywhere near as many races as I’d watch in the course of a NASCAR season. Mostly, it’s because it’s not shown, or advertised anywhere nears as much, as NASCAR. Of course, don’t help that I grew up in Northern Wisconsin. While IRL raced every year both in Milwaukee and in Elkhart Lake, the area I was in lived, and breathed, stock cars.
Some of my friends, though, are as big of IRL fans as they are NASCAR fans, and they all were Dan Wheldon fans. Watching their reactions, and the reactions of others on Twitter, reminded me of going in to a chat room after Senior’s crash, or after September 11, 2001, and discussing what happened. People from all over were using it, like with this blog, to remember and console each other and just…talk. It’s amazing what the Internet and social media has, and can, do. In this case, it worked as a giant counseling session, and a way to remember a great driver.
The entire thing seems so…surreal. Like I’ll wake up, and go on to the Internet, and find that he won the race, and the five million dollar “bounty”, as it were. Yet, I know I won’t, and that’s a sobering fact. There’s so much more about this that’s eerie. Jimmie’s crash in Charlotte was with about the same number of laps left as had been raced in Las Vegas when the crash happened. If it wasn’t for the CoT, no matter how much people complain about it (myself included), there’s a very good chance that Jimmie’s crash would have ended in the same result as the crash in Las Vegas did. Not only that, but who was one of the drivers who worked the hardest on and for a IRL CoT? Dan Wheldon. It sucks that the guy who helped develop it isn’t going to have a chance to race it. It really, really sucks.
Rest in peace, Dan.
Dan Wheldons Passing Brings Back Feelings of Dale Sr is a post from: Awesome Race Fans
Awesome Race Fans
