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The month of October has become a tough month, when it comes to memorializing IndyCar personalities. Just last week, we lost legendary IndyCar designer Bob Riley. We also marked the passing of Tony Renna, who was fatally injured in a test at IMS in 2003. The week before that, we remembered Dan Wheldon who perished in a crash at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on October 16, 2011.

When they are big-name drivers, I figure that there are so many that mark each anniversary of their passing – there is no point in me devoting a full post each year to their memory. That’s why you recently saw something from me marking the death of Renna, but nothing marking the thirteenth anniversary of Wheldon’s passing. I’ll wait until that date reaches fifteen years.

But no matter how well-known a driver is when he or she loses their life, when that time reaches the quarter-century mark – they deserve to be written about, no matter how many other articles are written that day about the same subject. Such is the case with Greg Moore.

I have never liked Halloween. I did when I was a kid, but after about the age of ten or eleven – I grew out of it. I liked the free candy, but never got into the whole costume thing. The last few years I did anything for Halloween, I just cut some holes in an old sheet, threw it over my head and went as a ghost. Since then, I have grown weary of Halloween. I don’t like scary movies, I don’t like costume parties and I don’t like 18 year-olds ringing our doorbell wanting free candy.

Susan likes Halloween better than I do, and refers to me as an October Scrooge. She enjoys decorating for Halloween, since she is very artistic. The first year we were married, she even carved our pumpkin with the famous IMS Wing & Wheel logo to sit out on our front porch. But I digress, as I ramble on from topic to topic…

October 31 took on a whole new meaning for me and most IndyCar fans, twenty-five years ago tomorrow – when driver Greg Moore was fatally injured at the CART season finale at Fontana.

Moore was not just a promising driver at the time of his death. He was already a star, and was on the brink of becoming a mega-star. He had already signed a contract with Marlboro Team Penske for 2000, to team with Gil de Ferran; in what was a total makeover for Roger Penske’s team.

For a couple of years, Marlboro Team Penske had fallen on hard times. They had bad car designs, questionable driver hires and a lead driver going through some personal issues. Two-time CART champion and two-time Indianapolis 500 driver Al Unser, Jr was coming off of two seasons that saw him finish eleventh and twenty-first in consecutive years. Tarso Marques split time between the No. 2 and No. 3 car. They even went through a driver fatality when Gonzolo Rodriguez was fatally injured at Laguna Seca.

For one of the few times in their existence, Team Penske seemed to be lost in the wilderness, and a complete house cleaning was in store after that miserable 1999 season. They fired Little Al and hired two race-winning drivers in de Ferran and Moore. They also shelved the unproductive Penske chassis, the Mercedes engine and Goodyear tires – even though Penske owned a chain of Penske Auto Centers, which were the old Goodyear Tire and Auto Centers. They went with the proven Reynard-Honda-Firestone combination that had won the previous four championships with Target Chip Ganassi Racing.

With the massive equipment changes and an exciting refreshed driver lineup, the future looked bright for Marlboro Team Penske for the new millennium. That is, until Lap 10 of the race at Fontana – when Moore lost control of his Player’s Reynard in a violent crash, that left little doubt what the outcome would be to anyone that saw it.  As we all now know, Helio Castroneves was signed to Moore’s ride after his passing. Marlboro Team Penske went on to win the CART championship in 2000 and 2001, and the Indianapolis 500 in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

When Greg Moore was lost that day, not only was a superb driver lost but so was a tremendous human being. The young Canadian was known for having an infectious sense of humor and was exceptionally good with children and potential young fans. He was popular with other drivers and was known for practical jokes. But when he climbed in the cockpit and put the visor down, he was all business and extremely serious.

I don’t feel as if I’m name-dropping, when I say that IndyCar journalist and writer John Oreovicz and I occasionally eat dinner together. This past May, he and I were having dinner together at Dawson’s in Indianapolis and sharing a few adult beverages after dinner. As usual, we were doing a lot of bench racing. Many times I’ll pick his brain on various drivers, races or specific situations. Most of the time, he’ll pause, take a sip of his beverage and deliver a well thought out opinion on whatever I asked him about. On this particular night last May, I asked him if Moore’s star-power had been enhanced over the years simply because we had all witnessed his demise. He immediately answered with a very quick and emphatic “No!”

I’ve probably known John for more than a decade. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him describe a driver’s pure talent and star-power, as he did that night. He went on for probably ten minutes on how Moore was a generational talent that hardly had a chance to shine. I am paraphrasing here, but he essentially said that Greg Moore at Penske would have been more successful than Josef Newgarden, Juan Montoya and Alex Zanardi combined – he was that good.

Oreovicz is a fun-loving guy, but I have never seen him turn so dead-serious on a topic, as he did that night at Dawson’s. I left there with no doubt in my mind that we had been robbed of one of the greatest racing talents ever, when Greg Moore was lost that day at Fontana.

Greg Moore was only twenty-four when he was fatally injured on Halloween of 1999; with tomorrow commemorating twenty-five years since his death. For those of us that remember his brief but brilliant career, it’s hard to believe he has now been dead longer than he lived. There is no telling what kind of career we fans were cheated out of witnessing. But no matter how much we fans feel cheated, it doesn’t compare to the loss that his friends and family felt and still feel today. As we remember Greg Moore this week, please also remember his friends and family.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on October 30, 2024 at 4:04 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.