Justin Boyd Wilson
July 31 1978 – August 24 2015
The IndyCar paddock and, indeed, the rest of the global
motorsports family – a tightknit 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 and then sponsorship was
found, because Wilson was the sort of guy sponsors wanted representing and
marketing their brand – smart, funny, well-spoken, good with the fans, and
uncontroversial – and Wilson 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 kinda 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 – that’s never a good sign – and, 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, 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, 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 ones 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 kinda
glad that I didn’t. 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 not be able to watch those scenes, nor 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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