Fare Thee Well Dan Wheldon

My first trip to an Indy Car Race will be be etched in my memory forever – but if I could change that I would.  The racing world lost a legend in front of my eyes at Las Vegas Motorspeedway.  I wanted to share some of my thoughts and perspective from that horrible day in the media center.

Let me start by saying I did not know Dan Wheldon.  I started following the Indy Car Series in the last year.  I had started my NASCAR blog and was wanting to expand coverage into other forms of racing.  Once they announced that the 2011 Series Finale would be held at my home town track – I started following Indy Car even more…. so by the time they pulled their transporters into town – I would be ready.

Q4G recently added our Indy Car blogger Ross Bynum who was also on hand for the race.  I was going to let Ross handle the “reporting” on the actual race while I was going to observe everything I could with plans of writing a story about the difference in the experience that is a NASCAR vs an Indy Car Race.

So there Ross and I sat in the press box atop Las Vegas Motor Speedway. When the wreck happened I knew in the pit of my stomach that things were bad.  At that point, they were not playing the slow motion replays on the small TV in the press box.  We were so high up above the start finish line that we couldn’t see much but smoking debris.  Even from that distance the one thing I knew…that was that the worst accident I had ever seen, in person or on TV.

When the blades of the Medivac Helicopter started up Ross and I packed up our laptops and raced through the tunnel back to the infield media center.  While this was my first Indy Car Race, I have been in many media centers in my two years covering motorsports and these rooms, while quiet, are full of energy.

The moment I walked into that room I knew instantly that everyone else had that same sick feeling in their stomach.  The energy had been sucked from the room and reporters sat wordless at their laptops.  At that point, the only updates coming from Indy Car were that Wheldon had been airlifted to UMC in Las Vegas.

I live in Vegas so I know that UMC has one of the best trauma centers in the western US – if not the entire country.. so that fact left me with some hope. Or should I say some doubt that the announcement I knew was coming would somehow be avoided.

There were no updates for almost two hours as the media sat there waiting.  Without sources, no one could tweet the rumors we were all hearing – the looks on the faces of track and Indy officials alone were enough to write the story.

I am not a “real” reporter – I do not have a degree in journalism.  Most of the time, I mainly try to make silly jokes on twitter and break down barriers with humor.  But on this day at the track I had to put on a reporters hat…. being very careful with what I was tweeting and re-tweeting….. I proceeded with caution and did the best I could in an untenable situation.

TV crews and photographers began to assemble and the technical folks began testing microphones on the media center stage…… we knew an announcement was coming.

At this point my mind started to think about the loss of Dale Sr.  To this day, whenever anyone brings up the death of Earnhardt, I don’t envision the footage of the wreck… instead the image that always pops into my mind is the moment when Mike Helton walked to the mic and in a flurry of flash bulbs said, “This is undoubtedly one of the toughest announcements I’ve ever personally had to make. But after the accident in Turn 4 at the end of the Daytona 500, we’ve lost Dale Earnhardt.”

So there I sat, just a few seats away from the stage where I knew that Indy Car CEO Randy Bernard was about to come into the room and make the announcement no one wanted to hear.  It was almost as if time slowed down when Bernard walked to the stage and made it official, “IndyCar is very sad to announce that Dan Wheldon has passed away from unsurvivable injuries,” Bernard said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family today. IndyCar, its drivers and owners, have decided to end the race. In honor of Dan Wheldon, the drivers have decided to do a five-lap salute to in his honor.”

My heart dropped but I didn’t cry… at that point I think I was running on adrenaline.  I started tweeting the quotes from Bernard and tried to help Ross anyway I could with the story he was writing about the accident.

I looked around the room and was amazed at the professionalism I saw… some reporters holding back tears were blazing away on their laptops.  This was not their first race…. they actually knew Dan and I felt like they were handling it better than me.  I can’t even begin to imagine how I would have reacted had this happened at a NASCAR race… with a driver I had known or become emotionally involved with.  It took me two days to write this….so I was really amazed at the professionalism they all showed.

Lots of questions are being asked now… was the race unsafe? are the speeds to fast?   The question we are all asking is WHY?  I think ABC’s Nightline said it best last night when they closed their Wheldon tribute piece by saying, “Sometime the question that remains unanswered is unanswerable.”
We will have plenty of time to investigate this accident…. right now we just need to remember Dan and push all of our thoughts to his family.

As the drivers made their five lap victory tribute the traditional Irish funeral dirge “Danny Boy” was played on the bagpipes…. I think it is fitting to close with some of those lyrics:

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer’s gone, and all the flowers are dying
‘Tis you, ’tis you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow
‘Tis I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.