Susie Wheldon opens up about life without Dan

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Well worth a read.

http://www.tampabay.com/sports/auto...r-champion-dan-wheldon-opens-up-about/2315679

At the edge of the racetrack, on a wide pad of asphalt, Susie Wheldon stooped to help her small son.

Sebastian, 7, already had wriggled into his Puma fire suit. Susie slid the chest protector over his head, to keep his lungs from being crushed. She strapped on the neck brace, to protect his spine. She tied his tiny racing shoes.

"Ready to go?" asked his coach.

The boy nodded, and climbed into his new Kid Kart. As soon as he pulled the helmet over his spiky blonde hair, his usual grin melted. He scrunched his freckled nose and set his jaw. "Getting his game face on," Susie called it.

He lowered the visor. She bent and kissed the spot in front of his mouth. Just like she had done before every race with his dad, her Dan.

Her husband was 33, a two-time Indy 500 champion, when he died in a crash at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Five years later, Susie, 38, has built a new home, started a new business and struggled to be a single mom to two boisterous boys. Letting her son race, she said, is the hardest thing she has had to do.

On a dreary winter Sunday at the Ocala Grand Prix, she watched her first-grader plant his feet on both sides of a gas tank. Between his knees sloshed a gallon of fuel. The go-kart doesn't have a seat belt; if it flips going 60 mph, the coach said, it's better for the driver to be ejected than to roll with the wreckage.

"Good luck!" Susie said, trying to smile. She waited until her son revved the engine, then stepped aside.
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The guys up and down the garage love and respect her.

She's been such a stoic character for her boys and to see her so successful is great to see, just like Dan, she never gives up in the face of adversity. Its a great story, for sure, and it looks Sebastian is the next generation driver to carry on the Wheldon name.
 
I'll tell you guys another good story about this. I read in the newspaper down here last week about Susie Wheldon having this opening party for her new store, VERVE down on Central Avenue, downtown. The newspaper said, "Come to the party!!" So, naturally some of us thought it was a grand opening and anyone could get in. So, I got (a little) dressed up and went downtown last Thursday evening about six o'clock. At six o'clock people started going inside so I went in. I stood at the door for a second, looking around when I heard this voice asking me if I had been invited.

I said, "I don't know. I read in the paper about the opening." And the guy said, "Well, this is a private party." I recognized the guy immediately and asked him his name and asked if he worked for Indycar. He acknowledged who he was and I told him that we had met in the past. So, I said OK and left.

Saturday, I saw the guy at the race track standing inside the gate. I knew he worked for Indycar Security and has for years. So, I went over to him and said,

"My face still hurts where you threw me out to the curb the other night."
He said, "What?"
I said, "My face still hurts where you threw me out to the curb the other night at Susie Wheldon's opening."
He said, "I don't know what you're talking about!"
I said, "Don't you remember, I walked into Susie Wheldon's opening and you asked me to leave because I didn't know you had to be invited?"
He busted out laughing and said, "Oh yeah!!"
I told him I was sorry, but I didn't know you had to have an invitation. He told me that the first hour was a private party but after that, anyone could go in. But I didn't know all of this so I was long gone after that.

Then I reminded him that I had met him last year when I stopped in at the Firestone Office in St. Petersburg and was asking him about an incident years ago at the Edmonton Indycar Race. Then he did remember talking to me last year. By the way, did I mention I got his autograph, too?

His name is Charles Burns. You guys might remember him from this:
 
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Charles Burns is the one Helio grabbed and shook after the race.

Head of Indycar security and ex- Indiana State Patrolman.

Some bouncer, huh?
 
Taken last Thursday night.
 

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Dan's car that won the Indy 500 in 2011. They wheeled it down the street for the VERVE opening.
 

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You want a collectible? Do you see the two small spoilers (?) at the outside ends on the front wing? I have one of those back home. I'm guessing it got rubbed during the season and got changed because there is a tire burn on it. Someone put it on ebay a few years ago and I snatched it up.

:D
 
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