He's put a car on the pole when he should have been in bed. And climbing out of that car when he finally had to at Indy one year, was the hardest thing he had ever had to do. And it showed. The relationships that I have seen over the years between firefighters after having lost a fallen comrade, mirror to the tee, a race car driver's feelings. They share stories of their friend with one another to grieve and heal.
Race drivers do the same.
I can only imagine that trying to fall asleep in the safety of their own beds next to their own wives this week, were the toughest points to get through. This is not to say that those drivers won't have fleeting visions of that Black Number 3 car in their rear view mirror, appearing like a ghost from the pack. It is as if when you lose a pet, you go through your house and sometimes still hear the meow or catch a shadow from the corner of your eye and swear it is the pet you loved, jumping up onto your sofa. But we all know it isn't. And they will know after catching their breath for a moment, that no, it wasn't Dale, but a competitor in the mirror.