Team Penske driver Simon Pagenaud and his girlfriend, Hailey, stood in line at Gate B11 at the Charlotte Douglas Airport waiting to board the long flight to San Francisco. For Pagenaud, it's time to get back to work as the 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series season concludes with Sunday's championship-finale -- the Go Pro Grand Prix of Sonoma.
But Pagenaud admitted events of the past 72 hours have taken much of the enthusiasm out of this trip.
With broken hearts, IndyCar tries to move on, get back to business and conclude the season by crowning a champion.
"It's certainly not going to be much of a celebration for whoever wins the championship," said the driver from France who now lives in Huntersville, N.C. "It's a very sad time for IndyCar."
Pagenaud's thoughts pretty much summed up the collective feeling of everyone involved with the series following Justin Wilson's death when he was struck by the nosecone off Sage Karam's race car after it crashed coming out of Turn 2 at Pocono Raceway on Sunday. The heavy piece of debris sailed through the air and landed on Wilson's helmet.
Wilson's Honda was 12 cars behind Karam at the time in one of the most freak fatal accidents in recent auto racing history.
"It's such a freak thing that happened to Justin," Pagenaud said. "It's like walking past a construction site and getting hit in the head by a falling wrench or another tool.
"What are the odds?"
One of Pagenaud's three teammates at Team Penske is Juan Pablo Montoya, who takes a 34-point lead over Graham Rahal and a 47-point lead over three-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon into Sunday's race that pays double points. Montoya is attempting to win his second IndyCar championship.
The bitter, cruel irony of it all is when Montoya won the 1999 CART championship as a rookie at Target/Chip Ganassi Racing he clinched the title in the final race of the season that Greg Moore was killed. The following night's CART championship banquet was a somber affair and was more of a memorial to Moore than a championship celebration.
If Montoya closes out the championship in a season where he has been in first place from the opening race on the schedule, he once again will have a dark cloud hanging over his championship from Wilson's death.
So as drivers, team members and officials made the long trip to the West Coast on Wednesday, it signaled a time to go back to work. The five drivers still eligible for the championship made an appearance on the steps of the California State Capital in Sacramento in a previously scheduled promotional event to help publicize the championship decider at Sonoma Raceway.
All championship contenders joined California State Sen. Jim Nielsen on the west steps of the State Capitol building for a proclamation and celebration of the championship being decided in California for the fourth consecutive year. The INDYCAR Experience street-legal two-seat Indy car was present along with a show car.
On Thursday, five contenders will be available for an on-field photo/media opportunity prior to the San Francisco Giants/Chicago Cubs game. The drivers will pose for photos with the Astor Cup, the Verizon IndyCar Series championship trophy, and the Commissioner's Trophy won by the Giants in the 2014 World Series.
And at 12:30 Pacific Time on Thursday the northbound lane of the Golden Gate Bridge will be shut down for a procession of competition Indy cars, the INDYCAR Experience street-legal two-seat Indy car and Holmatro Safety Team vehicles. The two-seater will be driven by Verizon IndyCar Series driver James Hinchcliffe and carry the Astor Cup -- the Verizon IndyCar Series championship trophy -- in the passenger seat. The northbound direction represents the series taking the trophy toward Sonoma Raceway.
All of this may seem trivial in light of Wilson's death, but in auto racing the "Show must go on" and that is what IndyCar is attempting to do and must do in order to move beyond the tragic event that happened at Pocono Raceway to a driver who was genuinely loved by all involved in the sport.
"The show must go on" for IndyCar, but it's going on with broken hearts.
Be sure to catch Bruce Martin's Honda IndyCar Report on RACEDAY on FOX Sports Radio every Sunday from 6-8 a.m. Eastern Time.
