The IndyCar paddock and, indeed, the rest of the global motorsports family – a tight-knit group, if ever there was one – is once again forced to confront the worst possible scenario that motorsports can throw at us.
British IndyCar favourite and ex-Formula One pilot Justin Wilson, a man who by all accounts was as nice a man as there was in motorsport, died on Monday night, succumbing to injuries sustained in a late-race crash at the Pocono 500 in Pennsylvania on late Sunday afternoon.
They called Wilson the gentle giant. He was the sort of guy that no one hated. On and off the track, he was a gentleman. He always had time for fans and as a result he became something of a cult hero in the IndyCar paddock. Everyone wanted to see him do well.
I was no different. If my favourite driver couldn’t win, I wanted Wilson to win. He delivered two memorable wins for the underfunded perennial backmarker squad Dale Coyne Racing, but Coyne’s operation just didn’t have the consistency he craved.
This year, Wilson, who once sold shares in himself and his career to break into Formula One racing, got what he wanted: a competitive ride, graduating to the big time with Andretti Autosport. Originally, it was a two-race deal for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis but then sponsorship was found, because Wilson was the sort of guy sponsors wanted representing and marketing their brand. He was smart, funny, well-spoken, good with the fans and uncontroversial, and he was able to jump in for the final three races of the year.
The hardest thing to digest was the randomness. You can almost begin to kind of rationalise the loss if the driver who has lost his life was caught up in the middle of some major conflagration. But Wilson was the very definition of an innocent bystander when he was struck in the head by a nose cone that bounced towards him, the wreckage coming from a crash involving Sage Karam.
Wilson had no dog in that fight, yet the debris flew all over the place, one large chunk striking him on the head, and he was air-lifted to a local area hospital. Thanks to the kindness of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Tony Stewart, who sent his private plane to bring Wilson’s family from Colorado to Pennsylvania, he had his loved ones by his side for his final moments. No wonder Stewart is so well regarded.
IndyCar fans know all too well how it feels to lose a favourite. It’s still recent – less than four years ago, in fact – that we lost another popular Brit, the affable Dan Wheldon, in a shocking incident at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. We lost rising American stars Paul Dana and Tony Renna in the mid-2000s.
The season finale in 1999 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana saw the death of Canadian Greg Moore, a friend to everyone in the paddock like Wilson was, and Uruguay’s Gonzalo Rodriguez died earlier that year at Laguna Seca. For IndyCar fans, those days are etched into your memory. Each fatality brings back memories of those that have happened in the past, and your stomach turns once more.
I’m in Tennessee on vacation, and couldn’t access NBCSN to watch the race – the first IndyCar race I’ve missed all year – and I’m kind of glad. The reactions filling my timeline were enough. It was like Wheldon and Renna and Moore and Rodriguez all over again. Honestly, I was glad to miss those scenes, and the grief-stricken reactions of Wilson’s friends and fellow drivers post-race. How hard will it be for those men and women to strap back into their cars in seven days’ time and go racing again?
Of course, motorsport is inherently dangerous, but that fact doesn’t even come close to helping us come to terms with what’s happened today and what’s happened to other great drivers from this series and others. We’ve witnessed some great racing in the IndyCar Series this year, with still one race remaining, but the sad fact is that Wilson’s death will cast a long shadow – as it should – over the sport. Ultimately, season 2015 will be remembered for one accident that has robbed the sport of a great personality.
On a more important and personal level, those few horrifying seconds in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania have robbed two young kids of a father, a wife of a husband, a brother of his idol, two parents of a son, and many people, both inside the motorsport community and out, of a wonderful friend. And the IndyCar nation – all those who felt they knew Justin Wilson, the driver who seemed to do everything with a thousand-watt smile on his face, without actually really knowing him – of a great driver and a great personality.
God bless and God speed, Justin. You were a great driver, a great ambassador for the IndyCar Series and you will be sorely missed for many years to come by all of us who love the sport. Please, tell Greg, Tony, Paul and all the rest that we said hello.
Justin Wilson is survived by a wife and two daughters. The IndyCar Series has set up a trust fund for his children.
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