Dan Wheldon lived to race. Unfortunately, his love of racing came with a certain amount of risk and Sunday in Las Vegas Dan Weldon was involved in a crash that took his life.
Lori and Dewain Davis in Winamac knew Danny very well. They met Danny through their daughter who dated the famous racer at one time.
“He had such a passion for racing,” said Dewain Davis. “I know the first time I met him, I asked him, ‘Do you think you’ll ever race in Indianapolis?’ He replied, ‘Oh yeah. I’ll be there.’ Sure enough, he was. I remember one time I asked him, ‘Daniel, what is your biggest fear of the race track?’ He said, ‘Dewain, coming up behind another car, hitting the back wheel that causes me to go airborne. When that happens, I’m toast.’ And that’s what happened Sunday. He went airborne.”
The Davis family and Danny’s parents developed a fast friendship. The parents and Danny had all visited Winamac.
“His parents were at our place and he’s the kind of guy that was always full of fun of laughter and a prankster and when you were around him, you just enjoyed every moment of it. You never knew what he was going to come up with. He just totally lived to race. That was his passion. There was not much else that really got him going as much as the competition of racing.”
Dewain said that Danny’s father got him started in racing at the age of four.
“From the time he was three or four years old, his father used to take him around to some of the miniature go-kart tracks and then as he got more involved in it, he set many, many track records that still hold today in England.”
Danny Wheldon, winner of the 2005 and 2011 Indianapolis 500 races, and one of the most famous of the open wheel drivers.
