The friends and rivals in IndyCar whom Dan Wheldon left behind raced along the road that now bears his name, honouring his memory with every sharp brake and acceleration around Turn 10 of the Streets of St Petersburg course.
They raced barely three kilometres from where his home, in new cars now known from his initials as the DW12, having been started by his younger sister Holly waving the green flag. This had followed a video tribute and prolonged applause for the British-born driver.
As the IndyCar series restarted its engines for 2012 on Sunday evening there was not just anticipation of the new season, but plenty of poignant reflection on the events of last October 16, when Wheldon was killed in the final race of 2011 in Las Vegas.
An infinitely happier memory will be of Turn 10 on this street circuit, halfway up Florida’s Gulf coast. It was at the very same point in 2005 that Wheldon made his move to win this particular race. It is also where a permanent monument dedicated to him will soon be erected by the side of what earlier this month was inaugurated as Dan Wheldon Way.
Brazilian Helio Castroneves drove up it 100 times on Sunday night and, after crossing the finish line as winner, stopped his victory lap where the road sign hangs on a fence.
There he climbed the wall and slapped it repeatedly, overcome with emotion.
“I was thinking of our friend upstairs.”
Wheldon’s widow Susie was there for the inauguration ceremony although this weekend she chose to be away from the family’s waterfront home in the nearby upmarket suburb of Snell Isle, to where the intense whine of the engines can carry.
Her late husband, 33 when he died, was held in enormously high regard by his peers and by American motorsport’s millions of fans. While the charismatic Wheldon gained more fame posthumously in his own country, in life he was a well-established star in the United States.
Some of those fans yesterday wore ribbons of orange, the predominant colour of the car he used to win the famed Indianapolis 500 in 2011 - an achievement matched by his friend and fellow Brit, reigning Series champion Dario Franchitti.
The 38-year-old Scot was more affected by the tragedy in Las Vegas than most. Far from celebrating last season’s IndyCar championship, he wanted to get away from racing after the accident which killed Wheldon - thrown against a fence post after a high-speed collision.
‘It was too raw,’ said Franchitti, who finished 13th in St Petersburg on Sunday. ‘I asked myself many times if I still wanted to do this and eventually decided that I did.’
BITTEREST OF IRONIES
Sunday began on a quiet note with a religious service held early in the morning, attended by various members of the teams. Prayers were said for Wheldon, but the service is a regular feature on race days.
It would be easy to paint this as part of a social conservatism running through a sport associated with the American south. In fact the scene is almost Monte Carlo-esque, with a backdrop of palm trees and large yachts in the marina.
It is the bitterest of ironies that Wheldon spent much of his final season testing the car that made its debut on Sunday, designed to try to prevent tragedy.
He died driving in the final race in which the old design - which dated back nearly 10 years - was used.
The latest edition has an enhanced safety cell in which the drivers sit and the wings and bumpers have been extended to reduce the danger of cars riding over each other.
Wheldon always hosted a post-race party in this town and, with the blessing ofhis family, the same event went ahead on Sunday night. It promised to be a bittersweet occasion indeed. - Daily Mail