This is something one of my customers wrote, he is a fellow racer that met Dan Wheldon. I don't think I could have said it any better.
With the death this weekend of Dan Wheldon at Las Vegas, I have been getting emails and calls from friends that know of my racing history and my continued passion for all things speed/competition related. I’ve struggled with coming up with a good explanation of why with the all of the horrific outcomes, I yet climb back into that race car and go compete.
Words fail me greatly when trying to explain it. I try to explain to people it’s for the love of competition or that I really am that “type A”. But in truth, it’s what God created me to do. That’s how I was wired up. I had a passion and a God-given talent to drive a race car as hard and fast as physics would allow. Could I have taken another path and done something different with my time? I probably could, but I wouldn’t have been as happy as I am when on track. Nothing can replace that feeling or provide that absolute satisfaction.
When you fight through the tears and sadness of what happened to a good family man like Dan Wheldon, you realize, unfortunately, the stark reality that there is risk in anything we do. I could step off the curb crossing the street and could be killed. It sounds simplistic, but that’s because it is. Who hasn’t heard stories of a soldier surviving fighting in some far-off land protecting our freedom, only to come home and be killed in a car wreck or a robbery?
As a race car driver, I have a different mindset and I know it. Even at a go-cart track with friends, I can’t just let one of the guys win. I will push the very limits of life to beat anyone and everyone present by as much of a margin as I can generate. I honestly believe down to the core that “it can’t happen to me.” I believe “it might happen to the other guy but not me.” Every accident I was in as a driver, I was blessed. I survived and I walked away to a certain extent. Now sure, I have paid the price with my physical being, I got all busted up, but I was alive and able to come back and race again, no matter how long the rehab took, or what the doctors believed was possible.
I learned next time out, to be more aware of a situation or do a better job in anticipating what might and probably would happen. I learned where the line was with both machine and me. I never let an accident take me away from the sport I felt I have to be involved with for life to have meaning.
My passion has always been racing. Everything else ran a distant second. I can and have driven hurt. I would do the rehab or whatever it took to get back in that race car. Broken ribs, cracked bones in the hands, even after facial reconstruction – I don’t care, tape me up. Busted leg – how soon can I drive again? Concussion – I’ll be fine, what was that, no really I am fine why do you keep asking? That was my mindset because I refused to let an accident control me and keep me from following my passion.
It’s like the old cliché of, “If you fall off the horse, you have to get back on it.” You just have to. You can’t let the fear take over and put up a barrier in your mind. That’s not living, that’s just waiting to go talk to God about what you’ve done to his creation and the choices you made along the way.
As a driver, you have to believe your destiny is in our own hands. Racers are supremely confident when it comes to that. To a certain point, a driver feels bulletproof because he or she is in control. Some may label that prideful, arrogant, ego, etc., but that’s the passion and we follow it to the fullest. We like to be challenged. We like to be in control. Most of all, obviously, we like to win.
No driver gets behind the wheel of a race car with a death wish. It’s the complete opposite. When you sit down in the seat of that race car, you have all the confidence in the world. This is your day. You are smarter, better and faster than the other guy. You just know it.
Risk is part of what we do. We know it and accept it. We also try to eliminate as much of that risk as we can through skill, education, experience and practice, lots of practice. Are you going to wreck? Sure you are sometimes, but you try and learn from each one. Learning from all those little knocks hopefully keeps you from having to face the big knock.
PLEASE no more calls or emails. You will either accept what explanation I have provided or not, either way, I will continue on my chosen path……..
