Nicole Briscoe & Dan Weldon

Nicole Briscoe was a NASCAR TV person in 2011. During the pre-race TV stuff at the NASCAR race following the Las Vegas race where Dan Weldon was killed in 2011, they spoke at some length about Weldon's death. At the time I knew Ryan Briscoe was an Indy Car driver, but never made the connection, and didn't know that Nicole and Ryan were married. It was a bit of an emotional tribute. It's worth watching, if you've never seen it. How she held it together during that segment is beyond me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eylBFh7zlmA

That is indeed a great piece. All the personalities in there are great. Miss seeing Brad Daugherty. I think he was great doing that right there and Rusty was too. Rusty Wallace offered probably the best insight a driver could have at that point after all that he had been through.

I could sit here and reminisce about lost race drivers for quite some time and even after the years have past, their losses are still very sad to me. I am primarily an IndyCar guy but I do appreciate all American racing as a whole. Losing Dan Wheldon, the reigning 2011 Indy 500 Champion was a giant tragedy. Wheldon was a huge personality. Very Likeable guy. It was a very violent, tragic racing Accident that came at a time when IndyCar racing was finally recovering and regaining its popularity. The Wheldon accident shook the Drivers and the fans, and had a very lasting impact. Reminds me of losing Greg Moore in another high-speed racing accident at Fontana back in the CART era. Moore too was very talented, very well liked and his death shook the sport deeply. Justin Wilson was that kinda guy as well..... All of them had unlimited potential. No Idea what they could have accomplished in their careers... they were just taken from us Racing. Doing what they did in quirky unexplainable accidents and I think that is hard for all of us to reconcile.

Losing Dale Earnhardt at Daytona in my humble opinion was the saddest of them all. For me, NASCAR changed forever that day. Earnhardt did soooooo much for Racing...one can only imagine what Dale would be doing if he was still around today. At the very least....Dale would be offering incredible personal insight like Rusty and Dale Jarrett were right there. Nobody out there comes close to filling that guys shadow. Dale Earnhardt could do it all.