“Why is it always the good guys?”

My father would always say that over and over when he would find out a driver died.

Sunday, more and more people were saying the same thing.

Indy Racing League driver Paul Dana did everything fast. He drove fast, he was a quick learner and moved swiftly through life. Drivers usually do.

When he woke up Sunday morning his life couldn’t have been better. Sunday was going to mark the culmination of everything he prayed for before his head hit the pillow every evening.

At little over noon, it turned out to be the day he was pronounced dead at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami after a pre-race crash ended his life days before his 31st birthday.

Dana was a graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in journalism. In all likelihood, he should’ve been covering the season opening IRL race in Miami for Motorweek, Sports Illustrated or Maxim (the magazines that he wrote for out of college). However, he was meant for bigger things and knew it.

Going into the 2006 season, his fellow competitors kept saying how Dana wasn’t arrogant, didn’t want rides or opportunities handed to him and was one of those people who realized exactly how lucky he was to live his childhood dream. He was on the road to the storybook ending which included him finally being a successful driver then eventually retiring to spend time with his wife Tonya and possibly future kids.

As a younger fan, my racing experience included annual trips to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the month of the 500 and the glorified ‘Take your son to work day’ when a driver would visit the Bell Helmet Plant in Rantoul where the old man managed.

I’ll never forget the feeling at Indy, witnessing Mears’ 4th win and watching Al Unser Jr. win in 1992 (for the record, he’s right. People still don’t know what Indy means.) and Lynn St. James giving me my first souvenir during qualifying that same year.

All fans always enjoyed the racetrack when it was loud. Somebody leaned over and told me once “this place is kinda like sailing, things get ugly when it gets quiet.”

You could’ve heard a pin drop when drivers Scott Brayton and Tony Rena’s death turned the largest racetrack in America into a cathedral. Racing is a strange sport that way because a guy leaves the pits, drives 200 miles per hour, hits a concrete wall and our brain is trained to expect him to walk away. When they don’t, our body and minds aren’t capable of processing it.

Team co-owner Bobby Rahal called this “a black and tragic day” for his team and was visibly shaken in acknowledging Dana’s death Sunday morning.

Dana wanted more than anything to be a success. He gave up a promising journalism career, ignored several negative roadblocks and lacked financial support. March 26, 2006 he gave up his life. It doesn’t seem quite fair, he was one of the good guys.