When you’ve been in this business long enough, you accumulate your share of memorable interviews. The good, the weird and the weirdest. Michael Dukakis, Sarah Palin and Timothy Leary, respectively, to cite three.
But there’s one good one who has memorably–and poignantly– been recycling back every year at this time–to coincide with the running of the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. The late Dan Wheldon. The interview with the 29-year-old UK native and St. Pete resident was in the late winter of 2008. His final, fatal race was in the fall of 2011.
If Central Casting had been asked for an open-wheeled, racecar-driver type, this is who it would have sent. Prime time Tom Cruise sans Scientology. Clipped British accent. Winning smile. Outgoing personality when it still meant personable and friendly–not “look at me.” And he was, after all, an Indy 500 winner, a recent David Letterman guest and a nominee as ESPN’s “Hottest Male Athlete.” He was also a frequent visitor to children’s hospitals, here and elsewhere, although that hardly advanced the jaunty, sexy image of a hot-shot racer with an international following.
At the interview, he was accompanied by his fiancée, Susie Behm, a classy woman who is now his widow and the mother of their two young sons.
What struck me as the interview continued over lunch at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club was Wheldon’s observational humor and politeness–to Susie, to the interviewer he had just met and to the wait staff that he knew by name. Hardly the MO of most societal celebrities today.
A retrospective sense of foreshadowing abounds when I think back to that interview. Wheldon talked of his high-rev arena where speed has killed. “People see us zipping around at speeds that are otherwise illegal,” he noted. “That adds to the thrill, of course, but it’s definitely dangerous. … I’ve literally seen drivers pass away.”
How ironically nuanced I thought at the time. He couldn’t bring himself to use the “D” or “K” words. Drivers in horrific accidents “pass away.”
He also had an interesting take on what it’s like to be an IndyCar racer, one used to driving 200 mph for a living, when out cruising around his adopted city, often on a scooter.
“I’m relatively relaxed on public roads,” he said. “Also careful. Especially in St. Pete at night. People try to time the lights. I wait.”
But no, he didn’t “pass away” from an untimed light. He just left all of us much too soon.