Goshen, IN 9/16/02
While we know that the surgeon general has deemed smoking an evil habit leading to one's demise, a cigarette sure would taste good right now.
We've polished off the last Hoffman's, swallowed the last sip of "Fresca", and sit wondering how to write a column with some semblance of coherency, without sounding too dowdy.
It's Classic Weekend. A time when all supermodified fans should be chomping at the bit to make the annual trek to the Mecca of supermodified racing, Oswego Speedway for a weekend of friends, fun, and fast roadsters. The drive alone from Indiana harkens back to epic tales of Viking sagas and is the fodder of far reaching racing lore.
Ahh, but this year 'tis different for the scribe of the narrative laid before you in this fine paper. Faced with many personal issues, none the least of which is three days in a jail cell due to our own lack of good sense and proper judgment concerning the consumption of alcoholic libations, before undertaking the responsible operation of a motor vehicle within the county of Kosciusko, in the fine state of Indiana. Hence, the patina of the crown jewel of supermodified racing has become dull with the dreariness of life choices facing us."
So we thought. That was the start of our Classic preview edition. It's been a while since we've written and now it's just a bunch of drivel. We didn't want to write today. We didn't know how to put into words the feelings that have overwhelmed us. We lost a friend on Saturday. Dion Parish was a man that we connected with almost from the first time we talked. This sucks.
This is something that we haven't had to go through too many times thank God. What we are experiencing is no different from what many of you have dealt with repeatedly. The longer you remain a race fan, the more opportunity there is for something like this to happen.
Dion lost his life in a testing accident at Kalamazoo Saturday. He really liked this track. It was one that he had told us repeatedly he hoped would see supermodified action again. He wanted to race his super there. It was an unexplainable accident. If you read the press release, maybe you'll be able to make some sense of it. We thought that was a hard thing to write, but that is nothing compared to trying to tell everyone that reads this column how we feel about losing our friend.
We talked a lot about supers. Dion called us often. We were busy a lot and we didn't catch every call. We wish we had made more time. Dion was so giving of himself. He never failed to ask first how we were doing. How the kids were. He didn't want much, just our friendship. We followed him through the good and bad, always hoping he could get the monkey off his back and believing that when he did he was going to have a blast in the super.
It's funny in way. But who were we to believe that he wasn't having a blast all along? He never gave up. He kept coming back for more. He wanted this more than anyone did. Look at these horrible one-line sentences would you? Why won't the words just come out?
We remember the first time we talked. It was in answer to an ad in MARC Times. Someone was looking for people interested in starting a supermodified group in the MI/IN area. Being always inquisitive and knowing that this could be a great thing for our area, we picked up the phone and called. When Dion answered on the other end, we heard a man full of excitement and a willingness to be a sponge to absorb all he needed to in order to make this dream come true. A wide-eyed rookie you may say. In some aspects, we thought maybe he didn't know what he was getting himself into. We wondered if his enthusiasm was clouding his reality. But he didn't care, he spoke of the possibilities, the ideas, the chances. That seems like a long time ago now. The thing is, even when that deal didn't work out as we all had planned, he never gave up. To us that's the most charming thing about our friend. He never gave up at anything we ever knew him to do. When people said he couldn't, he just dug deeper and proved he could.
He'd get down on himself from time to time just like we all do. We'd be on the phone with him and would know that he was down. We'd ask him what was wrong and after he explained, we'd tell him it would be fine. We told him that time would bring about the changes he wanted and that eventually that proverbial monkey would disappear. While we don't know for sure if it really helped or not, we know that he never seemed to be down for too long before we'd get another phone call telling us how well things were going on the super and that it was really looking good.
To see him talk to his kids and joke with them like a friend as much as a father was one of our favorite Dion traits. You could see the love pour from him whenever the kids were around. Mindy and Lindsey were just as much a part of the race team as any of the adults and they were extraordinarily proud of their dad and loved what he was doing. Thing is, he wasn't just that way with his own kids. He was that way with kids in general and he never seemed to be bored with them. He always tried to make time to talk to the kids who came to the pits afterwards even on the bad nights when the car was crashed or things hadn't gone well.
You see, Dion was a good person. Not just a racer, but a regular guy that worked hard for his money and appreciated his wife, his kids, and his friends. He had a dream to race supermodifieds and he chased it right to the end. He worked hard and he played hard. All of this seems so cliche' but it's so true and based on the Dion that we knew, we know that he died the way he would have wanted.
It doesn't make it any easier for the people he's left behind. A wife cries, children weep, and family grieves. Friends are lost and we can't explain why this happens. All we can do, and all we've been trying to do the last couple days is remember that it's never too late to tell the ones we care about how much we care about them. So often we let the non-important things in life cloud our real mission here on Earth, that being to love one another.
So many of these guys that pilot the "Ultimate Short Track Race Car" are our good friends But we don't have the corner on the market in that department. This community of racers involved with supermodifieds are the tightest, most close knit of any in the realm of racing. So many times the outside public wants to believe that we're a bunch of redneck, beer drinking scum bags. If they only knew the real deal. They would see that we are people with families, goals, and lives outside of racing, and that nearly that entire personal agenda is shared with others in our extended racing family.
All we can say is we've lost a good friend and it hurts. But it's nothing compared to what Dion's family is going through and we ask that those of you who chose to read this column will hold them close in your thoughts and if you believe in God, that you say a little prayer for them. They need to know that the racing community is grieving with them, that Dion had friends who cared, about not only him, but his family also.
We know you're up there buddy smiling down on us. Say hello to Vuky, Sammy, Gary, Tom, AJ, Bobby, Jerry, & Randy. Tell all the others that we miss them just as we do you, and tell them to "Keep It Wing Side Up and Wheels to the Ground." God Speed Dion, we're going to miss you.