By The Commish

It's been five years since that horrible gray Sunday where tragedy struck on a mountainside outside of Martinsville, Virginia. To commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Hendrick Motorsports airplane crash, I'm re-running the report I wrote the night of the memorial service. I think it was my first article for 'Jeff Gordon Online.' I've made a few editorial changes, but it's mostly the raw words I wrote on October 27, 2004. It still seems like just yesterday.

Driving up in rush hour traffic I was wondering why I was doing this, going to a memorial service alone in the dark. I pulled onto Speedway Blvd. heading for Lowes and suddenly saw huge flashing lights. Track President Humpy Wheeler had opened the Z lot on the grounds of the speedway for parking. There were about 50 volunteers directing traffic. The white shuttle buses they use for races were all lined up for us. I spoke to the woman coordinating bus loading and she said that except for a couple of local cops who were getting overtime, they were all volunteering "to help the family."

Next surprise: they didn't take us up Speedway Blvd. and around down the front. There's a gate to the back of HMS in the rear of the parking lot. They took us down a gravel road behind the 24/48 raceshop and then a freshly-paved road they had put in around the back to loop down past the drainage lake. The asphalt was still soft, so they did this in the last 48 hours. I have never seen such a clean construction site in my life -- all the vehicles were neatly parked, there wasn't a dumpster in sight. Everything was spotless. You could tell that tons of work had been put into making everything look good for the night. There were a few lights on on the second floor of Jeff's shop. Obviously, somebody was working late.

They let us off at the junction where the driveway from Jeff's shop meets the driveway into Hendrick Engines so that we could walk up. I got there about 6:15 and I guess there were about 150 people there at that time. I left flowers by the base of the "Papa Joe Hendrick Blvd" sign in the makeshift memorial. There were several hundred bouquets there. The stage was set up in front of the museum and I walked up there. I got a spot in the second row, right in front of the podium. I saw Hendrick employees milling around on the porch of the museum, but the area was clearly roped off and people were respecting their privacy.

The crowd slowly continued to gather until darkness fell. I'm not too good at gauging crowds, but I'd guess maybe 500-600 people were there. I saw a number of the media folks, including Claire B. Lang doing her stand-up. Motorsports writer Marty Smith walked along the row of flowers trying to make some notes, but he was obviously really broken up. His wife came up behind him and hugged him and rubbed his back for a while. NASCAR's Jim Hunter was there, and so were a lot of people wearing Clevite shirts, Cabarrus County EMS workers, a few local politicians, and a lot of guys who obviously either race or work on race cars. I talked to some of Morgan Shepherd's crew for a while. The crowd was quiet and blue collar (lots of smokers), but sharing thoughts and memories. I couldn't believe how many people had met Ricky Hendrick at some small track somewhere. I don't think that boy ever met a person who didn't think of him as a friend.

The podium was hard for me to take. There were three empty stools surrounded by a hundred flower arrangments of every size, shape, and color. There was also a picture -- a 4x8 foot sheet with an oval picture of all ten of victims' smiling faces, and the message "Always in Our Hearts." Looking at that is what made most of the people break down. There was a young woman-- someone said it was John Hendrick's older daughter-- who came out from the museum to look at the bouquets. When she saw the pictures, she sank to her knees. A young man came and comforted her for several minutes. Most of the time a MercyMe album was playing.

Finally, around 7, it was dark and everybody lit their candles. Crew chief Robbie Loomis stepped to the podium and said, "Good morning, no good evening, I'm sorry, I'm a wreck," and you could tell that he was. He thanked everyone on behalf of the 450 employees of HMS for all their thoughts, prayers, and support that had gotten them through the past few days. He asked everybody to keep the families in their prayers. "We'll never get over this, but we will get through it," Robbie said, because of their faith, and their belief that God had called these people home. He read the list of names. His voice broke several times. He paused for several seconds with tears streaming down his face after he read Ricky Hendrick's name. Robbie recalled a quote someone had told him in the dark days after Adam Petty's death: "The day someone dies can be the worst day of your life, but it is the best day of their life." Robbie said at the time he didn't get it, but that he's thought about it a lot in the last few years and that it brought him comfort now to know that his friends had gone on to a better place. It was very clear his faith brought him comfort, even though he was obviously very shaken.

Robbie shared a reading with us that he called a poem, but is actually part of a classic sermon by Henry Scott Holland. Thanks to my friend Ben, the ex-seminarian, who knew it IMMEDIATELY when I called him from the car on the way home. Robbie's voice broke several times reading it:
"Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!"

Finally, he recalled John Hendrick leading the Wednesday Bible study sessions at HMS. "John had been working his way through second Timothy recently, and this was the verse he was going to talk about today," Robbie said. "It's II Timothy 4:6-7." He read it to us with his voice shaking:
"For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."

By now you could hear sobbing from the audience as well. Robbie asked us all to keep the faith and to keep the families in our prayers. He stepped away and many of the guys from the race teams came up to hug him. After another selection from Mercy Me, Dale Beaver of Motor Racing Outreach came to the podium and gave a brief sermon from two verses of the Sermon on the Mount "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted." Then Kenny Crosswhite of MRO got up and gave a long prayer and invited us to say "Amen." That was the end of the service. The official Hendrick folks slipped away into the museum, except for Robbie, who came out in the crowd to hug some friends and then to thank a number of people for coming. Several people hugged him. When he came past me, I just said, "You're in our prayers, Robbie," and he said "Thank you, we need them."

I hung around for a little while, talking to some folks who had driven down from Maryland for the car show at the track and came over to pay respects. I also spoke to several JG fans, and to an older Dale Earnhardt fan who seemed genuinely grieved and said, "I never wanted anybody else to grieve as much as we grieved for Dale." Then I caught the shuttle bus back to the parking lot. A very nice deputy sheriff stopped traffic so I could make an illegal left turn back across Speedway Blvd. as I headed for home. I needed to stop for gas and something to drink. I went into the McDonald's before the I-85 entrance and my eyes must still have been red. When I went to pay for my drink, the manager asked if I'd been at the service. I said "yes," and he gave me the drink for free. Little gifts, you know?

When I got back out into traffic on I-85 heading south, I switched on 95.7FM, Charlotte's indie radio station, and the first song I heard was The Byrd's "Turn, Turn, Turn." Seemed perfect for the occasion. The flowers I got were a huge pot of chrysanthemums of a variety called "Golden Promise." I wanted hyacinths, which in ancient Egypt were brought to honor the dead because they fed the soul, but they are out of season. I thought a long time about what to write in the card since I was asked to reflect the thoughts of several folks on the website. I wrote, "Shakespeare a long time ago wrote 'Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.' Since the soul is immortal, the friends we bind there never die, but remain forever with us, fountains of love and mercy we can turn to when we need them. They remain alive forever in our memories. In loving memory of John, Jennifer, Kimberly, Ricky, Jeff, Randy, Joe, Scott, Liz, and Dick; you and your families are in our prayers. God bless you all. With love, the members of the Gordonline.com Fan Forum."

Hendrick Motorsports has won three Cup championships and more than 50 races since that dark day in Martinsville in October 2004. Five years later, it is obvious that Robbie Loomis was correct. Hendrick Motorsports never did -- and never will -- get over the tragedy. But they have gotten through it, together.

Copyright-2009 Jeff Gordon Online. All rights reserved.