The Pain of Meeting A Father Who Lost His Daughter......

[JoeyD23]

So now that I am on my comp and not on my phone I feel the need to elaborate on the days most important event. We arrived to where tech/contingency will take place tomorrow here in Vegas for the BITD Vegas 2 Reno Race Event. I decided that I would go talk to a few people who were already there and give them first crack at the Fast-Aid.org Memorial Ribbon Stickers that I had to try and raise money for the California 200 incident. I approach a group and ask if they would be interested in donating. Immediately Steve from Tracking International says "this gentleman was the father to the girl who lost her life..." My heart sank. I saw tears well up in his eyes as I began to explain that I am doing this on behalf of Fast-Aid and the entire off road community.

I explained that I know words cannot come close to replacing the feeling he must have but I assured him that we as a community do feel his pain and do want to do all we can to get behind him and his family to ensure that no other families have to endure this type of pain. He commenced to thank me, thank Fast-Aid, and thank the community for all the outpouring of love. He said this as he held back tears of obvious sorrow.

He then opened up a bit about the tragedy that took his daughters life. He introduced me to his daughter's friend who was with her that dark day, she too was injured and walking with a limp. He began to explain that he does not hold Brett Sloppy responsible for this horrific accident. He understands that this was exactly that, an accident. He does feel that the organization putting on this event does have responsibility in this and that it was their job to control this crowd and keep people back and away from the track, essentially enforcing the rules they have in place.

In all he was not trying to push blame, just saying that if there was anything that could have prevented this tragedy from occurring it would have been MDR keeping the people back off the track in one of the most popular spectating points of the marked race course. As a fan and advocate of off road racing it is hard for me to think otherwise, and in his state I am in no place, nor is anyone to try and tell him or anyone who is suffering otherwise.

At the end of the day I feel proud to be a part of this community. I feel proud to know some of the guys at Fast-Aid and feel proud to be able to go out and represent them and help them try to relieve some of these humans long term pain and suffering. I guess what I am trying to say is as the days go on following this event, the pain for these family, friends, and victims does not subside as quickly as the memories of those of us who were not there or directly involved. We all need to keep this fire burning, for a long time, for ever! We need to never forget those who lost their lives, and certainly not forget about those family members and friends who lost someone they love.

Fast-Aid FOR LIFE, and I pledge to NEVER FORGET those who lost their lives at the California 200.


California 200 - FAST-Aid


Taken from our news blog:
UTVUnderground.com Industry News Blog: The Pain of Meeting A Father Who Lost His Daughter......

 

[JoeyD23]

he was a very stand up guy and was surrounded by his daughters friends. I can only imagine what is going through his mind...who to blame, WHY, HOW? All these things. I gave him a hug, it was all I could do to truly show that although I cant... feel his pain, I sympethize (sp?) and as a father I can easily sit back and put myself in his shoes to imagine what it is he is going through. Heck, just thought of losing one of my children is enough to make your stomach turn.

You just want to do so much more to help take their pain away. No one deserves to go through that. But like I told him, throuh his daughters death we will learn, and we will become better. It is no consolation, but there is positive that will come from this severe negative.

 

[Team Green]

Joey,

Thanks for sharing to all of us here, I know you are a great advocate for our sport and the safety of those invovled. Your voice and words both here and on RDC (as well as others) help to educate and inform. Thank you for that!

If I might publicly make a suggestion that a guy in your position and popularity could express where it needs to go.

Yes the CA race was a tragic accident and as with any accident if you look hard enough you can always find ways that it could have been avoided. This accident, for God's will was not avoided.

As future events take place, and we all hope this does not have a dramatic effect of the scheduling or participation of these events in the future, however we as enthusiasts need to accept the personal responsibility and act according to the rules and regulations of the events we attend and be examples to those around us. All eyes are now focused on our passion for these events and it is now up to us to act responsibily on our own before the law makers add rules that force us out of the desert.

So as events like the VtR (and future So Cal events) go off I would hope that all involved use common sense and act as shining examples of what passionate spectators and competitors should be like.

Accidents happen but if we all first look at our own actions we can dramatically effect circumstances like these from happening again (at least in the states).