Oilpressure

Yesterday, October 22, was a somber milestone in IndyCar history; and I’ll bet few know what it was. Last Wednesday, marked thirteen years from the day we lost Dan Wheldon. Next Thursday will mark twenty-five years since Greg Moore was fatally injured at Fontana. Memorials and tributes to Wheldon were all over social media, as they should have been. It will be the same next week, when Moore’s death reaches the quarter-century mark.

I am in full support of doing our best to remember both of these drivers. But it troubles me that yesterday marked the date of losing a promising young driver, yet he seems to have faded from almost everyone’s memory.

It was a sunny but crisp Wednesday morning, when Tony Renna was testing his new No. 10 ride for Chip Ganassi Racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. After being an Indianapolis 500 rookie just a few months earlier, Renna’s big break had come. He had been a more than adequate substitute in 2002; when Kelley Racing tabbed him to drive the car of Al Unser, Jr, while Little Al was going through alcohol rehab. In the 2003 Indianapolis 500, he started eighth and finished seventh. Scott Dixon was close friends with Renna, and he had also caught the eye of Mike Hull.

When Tomas Scheckter left Ganassi after a one-year stint in 2003, the promising Renna was picked to fill his seat.

October 22, 2003 dawned as a crisp fall morning. Renna was anxious for his first test with Ganassi, then he would move on to even bigger things. He was scheduled to get married exactly one month later in Hawaii – just one day before his twenty-seventh birthday. Life was coming together for the young Californian.

But as Renna was entering the north end on only his fourth lap, it all went terribly wrong. Since it was a private test, there was no video. There are several possibilities, but it was never determined exactly what went wrong. Some suggest that the air and track temperature was too cold, and that the tires had not warmed up properly. Others say an unexpected gust of wind caught him as Renna was entering Turn Three. Some even say he may have hit a bird, sending his car out of control.

Whatever it was, it was enough to send the car airborne and into the short chute catch-fencing. The car split in two, and the gearbox and other pieces of the car reportedly landed in the empty grandstands. Tony Renna was killed instantly.

Twenty-one years later, Tony Renna is hardly a footnote in IndyCar history. Several fatalities have taken place before and after Renna’s death; yet fans seem to keep their memories alive, while it seems that Tony Renna is fading into obscurity – and I can’t figure out why.

Is it because he only had seven IndyCar starts, most of which were in fill-in duty? Is it because he had yet to have a fulltime ride, even though he had been signed fulltime for 2004? He never won a race in his seven starts, although he did score five Top-Ten finishes in those seven starts. Is it because Renna was fatally injured in the offseason at a private test that had hardly any witnesses? Do we require gruesome video to make a driver deserving of our long-term memories? I think Tony Renna was destined for stardom, but he was lost so early in his IndyCar career – we will never know. But if he was good enough to earn the respect of Scott Dixon, Mike Hull and Chip Ganassi; count me as one who believes Renna would have been a star.

I did not mind being inundated with constant tributes to Dan Wheldon last week. I won’t mind seeing just as many for Greg Moore next week. But I was saddened by yesterday’s small number of social media tributes honoring the life of Tony Renna. Yes there were some (thank you @Indy44 and Chip Ganassi Racing), but only a small fraction of what I thought he deserved. I’m hoping his memory will not fade away completely over the next few years. He deserves more.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on October 23, 2024 at 4:02 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.