The fifth anniversary: PIR, the pole, and a reenactment (Part 2)

Warning: This post is on the long side. Also, some of the pictures or the content might be too much or a bit too intense for some people.

Don't say I didn't warn you....

I've written on this blog for over two years now, and I realize I've never actually described what happened that night five years ago, or how he died.

Yes, sure, I've written snippets about what happened in earlier posts (like here and here), but if you never read them, here's the short version:

He was in a race.

He pulled out to pass someone as the pack of racers started the final sprint for the finish line, at the end of a race.

He crashed into a pole.

He died instantly.

Anna and I weren't there.

And true, that's exactly what happened. But seeing it--seeing how it happened, where it happened--puts a much different perspective on it. As friends and family members have said, seeing it makes Charley's death that much more real.



I'd never been to PIR before Charley died. A race track designed for NASCAR, motorcycle, and other car races, it also hosts bicycle races too--a venue promoted as one of the safest places for new cyclists to learn to race because of its wide, flat surfaces and because it's closed to automobile traffic. Charley'd only been racing there for a few months when he died, and because of my work schedule, commute, and the timing of the PIR races, I was never able to watch him race there.



The first time I ever went to PIR was the morning after he died. On a practical note, I had to retrieve our car from where he'd parked it the evening before; on an emotional and shock-ridden note, I had to see where this horrific event happened, had to understand how it happened. I went there a second time a day or two after the funeral, to wander and be alone with my thoughts. I went back the Tuesday after he died, for the dedication that the race organizers held here in his honor. And other than a time or two later that summer and the next summer, shortly before the first anniversary of his death, I hadn't been back at all since his parents and I placed flowers in the fence on the first death anniversary.

Four years, and I hadn't been back once.

I'd occasionally thought of going to watch a bike race at PIR or else at the velodrome in previous years--usually in conjunction with trying to decide how I'd spend parts of the death anniversary every year--but ultimately I never actually wanted to go. My stomach turned at the thought.

It was churning in the late afternoon on July 13, as the time fast approached for Anna and I to leave for PIR.  I grew crankier and more prickly and short-tempered. I really, really, really didn't want to go, but I knew I'd need to go sooner or later. And I also knew myself well enough to know that if I hadn't gone in previous years, I sure as hell wouldn't be compelled to go in the coming years. If I didn't go at five years, when would I? (Never, if I could get away with it.)

My knees started to shake when I was in the shower, 45 minutes before we left our house. Maybe I'd just locked my knees for too long and felt faint, light-headed, as a result. Maybe it was just the extra-hot water that made my sight temporarily go black and fuzzy and my legs weak.

Or maybe it was the same ball of fear, grief, and horror that I'd felt so strongly in the first several years of widowhood. I didn't. Want. To go.

I shook my head when I noticed that I'd lost awareness of my body for a second or two. I won't be a coward, dammit! I fumed to myself. Yes, I knew that I didn't have to go to PIR, that no one was forcing me, and that no one would care if I changed my mind. It was just Anna and I going, after all, plus a friend from my support group who was meeting us there--if we made it. But I wouldn't let the fear win, even if it was a very temporary, knee-jerk reaction.

I continued to be cranky and short-tempered as I maneuvered rush-hour traffic. And me being me, of course I'd dawdled and procrastinated on getting ready and leaving; I didn't want to go in the first place. I'd originally intended to leave my house at 4:30 or 4:45 to make sure we got there by 5:30 or so when registration and warm-ups started, so that we could go down to the pole uninterrupted (and hopefully unnoticed), spend some time there, and then head back to the main grandstands before the first race started at 6:05. But of course we didn't end up leaving our house til just after 5:00 pm and didn't make it to the track until 10 to 15 minutes before the first race started. So much for advance planning.

(Or maybe my subconscious knew that I wouldn't really feel like hanging out with the "civilians" in the grandstands for the entire race, so it compensated and adjusted the so-called schedule for me. I was going to see the damned pole, after all, not watch the race so much.)

The pole doesn't look like much as you approach it from a distance.


A good 300 to 400 yards from the finish line, the walk feels like it takes forever...particularly if you're only five years old. Or, in years past, when I wanted to be anywhere else but there.


I didn't tell Anna exactly where we were going or why we were walking so far, on that cool, sunny summer evening only a day after the fifth anniversary of Charley's death. She knew we were there to watch a bike race and that Daddy had raced there--and, I presume, that Daddy had died there--but I certainly wasn't going to tell her what my intended destination was...or why I had my camera out, taking pictures of her and where we were heading.



Things had changed a little bit since I was last there, four years earlier.

The pole, in July 2006 at the first anniversary of Charley's death

Most notably, three six- to seven-foot-tall stacks of tires now stand in front of the pole, protecting it against exactly what happened there five years ago:


I told Anna then where exactly we were and that it was the pole that Daddy had crashed into. She took some time to take it all in, to look at the track and everything around her.





The words we wrote on the pole 4 years and 51 weeks previously were no longer there, long erased by exposure to wind, rain, sun, and snow.

Signing the pole at the PIR salute, one week after he died. July 19, 2005.

Permanent marker is no match for the elements...but the scratches--from Charley's helmet where he was thrown upon impact onto the pole--those are still there, visible just above the top of the tires...the top end of the scratch a good seven feet or so off the ground.


When I first saw those scratches on the pole--three separate sets of them--five years ago, as a manager at the track took me to the pole to show me where the accident happened and proceeded to obliviously point out each set of scratches from his wheel, his handlebars, and then his head, all I could see were the big bolts that were perfectly spaced between each scratch. They were fucking huge...and I felt a keen, warm rush of relief that he hadn't hit those bolts.

This year, though, what stunned me was how high the top scratch went. Yes, I'd been there before, plus I'd seen pictures of me, other people, next to the pole in the intervening years. But there was something astounding about seeing a stack of tires taller than I am (and I'm 5'7") and seeing that the scratch starts and ends far higher than I stand.

It means his speed and the impact sent him seven feet off the ground before he fell. The physics of that feat still stuns me...and it was the most notable, memorable impression of the day for me.

Even Anna noticed the scratch on the pole, above the tires. She asked if it was from Daddy--and I hadn't pointed it out to her--and all I could tell her was yes.

We spent a bit more time there by the pole, watching as the last cyclists finished their warmup laps and the first race began.


I wondered if anyone noticed us there and, if they did, if they wondered why a lone woman and kid were hanging out at such an odd place at the track. I'm sure there were some people racing that had been there that night five years before. (And ironically, I noticed a van in the parking lot that I'm 95 percent sure belongs to my old neighbor from Sandy, who was at the race the night Charley died.)

Anna got tired of hanging out by the track and wanted to instead sit in the stands and watch like a normal person. (Or in reality, she wanted to play with the toys she'd brought.) So I hoisted her onto the top of the 4-foot-tall chain-link fence--no small feat these days, as she's fast approaching 55 pounds and 48 inches tall--and I had to shake my head and laugh a bit as she exclaimed, "Help me, Mama! I can't do it!" Who on earth has to teach their child how to climb a rail? Isn't it something kids are automatically prewired to know how to do?!?

She definitely inherited her father's cautiousness (and perhaps his dislike of heights), and not the moderate dare-devil-ness her mother had as a kid. ;o) But she figured it out, and these next two shots ended up being two of my favorite pictures of the night, for whatever reason:


And once she successfully made it into the bleachers, she had fun playing with her princesses for a while, as Mommy continued to click away with her camera.


And now for a pause....

I still haven't said much yet about what actually happened during Charley's crash, have I?

The bike race at PIR alternates its direction every week. One week it goes the same direction as it's designed to be used, by race cars, and then the next week it goes the opposite direction. The night Charley died, they were racing in the backwards direction on the track.

Think of it like driving down the freeway. If you're driving down the freeway the way it's intended, you drive away from the ends of barricades at onramps and exits. But if you're driving the wrong way, you can plow head-on into the ends of the concrete barriers.

Now, because PIR is also used by high-speed race cars, it has to have fences and barricades to protect the spectators. A line of concrete barriers--much like you have along urban freeways--and an empty width of grass separate the edge of the track surface from the bleachers; a 10-foot-tall chain-link fence stands on top of the concrete barricades to protect on-lookers from flying debris. But the fence needs support at its ends. Namely, 12- to 18-inch-wide steel poles that are filled with concrete.

Exactly like the pole Charley crashed into.

The race Charley was in lasts about 30 miles, I think, and it finishes in about an hour. So you can do the math here: they average 30 miles per hour during the race. But that's just an average. Some laps are slower, while others--bell laps or, in the case of when Charley crashed, the final lap--are faster. And those are just the average speeds for the lower category 4/5 racers, like what Charley was; the cat 1/2/3 racers--the really good, fast guys--can go much faster. Eyewitnesses estimated that the cyclists, and Charley, were going 30 to 35 mph when he crashed.

Typically the big final sprint at key laps starts several hundred yards from the finish line at PIR. Most of the time the racers stick together in a big pack, to make use of physics, aerodynamics, drag, and I don't even want to remember what else (I HATED physics in college), to make it easier for the pack to go faster. But a racer can strategically break away from the group--taking off from the front, or the sides, or anywhere on the outsides of the group--to try to get ahead of the other racers during sprints. There's a whole mess of strategy and timing to it, which, after five years, I have no real memory of. But suffice it to say that timing and strategy are everything for winning races.

Some laps, the pack stays more to the middle of the track, far away from the barricades--and the fence and steel poles--on the outside edge of the track.


But some laps they get closer to the outside edge. MUCH closer.


So close, in fact, that they're nearly riding on top of the white line (the fog line, if you will).


...a white line that's less than a foot from a certain steel pole.

Signing the pole before the PIR salute, July 19, 2005.

Similar to the whole pack thing, there's also something called drafting in cycling. It's where a cyclist follows immediately behind another cyclist--less than a foot, even--to take advantage of speed. (Again, I hate physics, so read this Wikipedia article if you really care to know more.)

Charley had been commuting to work by bike an average of three to five times a week, for probably nine months before he died--a ride of about 45 minutes and 15 miles, each way. Because of traffic, it only took him 15 minutes longer to ride his bike versus driving, and he was a much happier camper getting to ride his bike instead of cursing at stupid, slow drivers while stuck in the car. And for better or worse, it meant he trained every week for racing--something he'd never been able to do in the previous two years since he'd started racing at the velodrome track--and his strength and endurance really improved during the time he commuted by bike. So much so that he could actually compete for finishes during races that summer, which he'd never been strong enough to do before. After several weeks of racing at PIR, he was starting to get a feel for how the race worked, the problem spots on the track, and his own personal strategy for races there.

From what eyewitnesses said, the pack was starting its final sprint for the finish line, and Charley was drafting right behind a guy on the far outside, right-hand side of the track...sorta like this (only probably closer together):


He had his head down as he drafted--something I've been told is a personal preference or style choice by another cycling friend--and as he approached this particular spot on the track, he must have sensed the opening, that the track was wider as the concrete barricade moved away from the pack and the white line on the track.


And the only thing I can figure is that he temporarily forgot that the wall and the pole were there, waiting ahead of him. He pulled out to the right, to the opening in the track, to pass the guy in front of him--his strategy for breaking away from the pack, to sprint up the far outside right of the pack and make his move for the finish line. And from what eyewitnesses said, he hit the pole within a foot of pulling out to pass.

One foot.

His front wheel hit first. The rim of his wheel broke on impact, crushing the wheel and shearing the fork off the stem of his bike frame. His handlebars hit next, and his momentum and speed threw him up over his handlebars and up against the pole--to a height of six feet off the ground, if you remember what I said earlier about the scratches.

He was killed instantly, dead before he hit the ground.

But wasn't he wearing a helmet? people always ask me. And yeah, he was, and it did what it was supposed to do, but at 30-35 mph, it doesn't do you a helluva lot of good when you hit a solid, unmoving mass like that steel pole.

Blunt force trauma to the head was the official cause of death. He broke his nose, his jaw, and perhaps his left cheekbone, and had a massive list of internal injuries to his brain. I don't even remember what all they were, nor am I masochistic enough to pull out the autopsy report to check facts. Hemorrhages, hematomas, fractures...I could only read the list of injuries twice--once to skim, a second time to try to understand what I was reading, to extract long-forgotten knowledge from my college anatomy class eight years prior--before I had to stop reading nearly five years ago.

I was at home with Anna when he crashed, changing her diaper and dressing her in pajamas for bedtime when he was declared dead by paramedics 25 minutes away.

The police knocked on my door two hours later. His body went to the morgue five minutes from our house, over an hour before I was notified. I didn't get to see his body for two whole, long, excruciating days--a goodbye that has been the single hardest thing of this entire five-year journey.

We had his funeral on Saturday, four days after he died. Over 250 people came. His parents, sister, her husband, Anna, and I buried him on Monday.

And life has never been the same since that knock on the door five years ago.

(Now back to "real" time, on July 13.)

Surprisingly--shocking, even--it wasn't hard being at the racetrack once I got there. The anticipation, dread, and dislike of going; the drive there; having to deal with normal parenting stuff as I was getting my defensive armor up for the visit: those were the hard parts of the day. Being there was as natural as anything else...and nothing had really changed in the four years since I last was there, a fact that was comforting in its own way.

I eventually climbed up and over the rail too, and my friend from support group showed up shortly after. Another widow of another freak accident, her husband died while snowshoeing on Mt. Hood and his body has never been found. I'd gone up to Mt. Hood with her once, about 14 months after Charley died, to be with her while they conducted another helicopter search for his body. And as we sat on the mountainside on that gorgeous late September afternoon, watching the helicopter as it moved around the mountain several thousand vertical feet above us and listening to the stories she told me about her husband, about her tragedy, were some of the most honest, peaceful, real moments in all of my widowhood. There we were, literally and figuratively searching for what remains--of our lives, of our husbands, of our dreams--after finding ourselves stuck in a nightmare we couldn't wake up from.

After the bond we'd shared during the search for her husband (and in all the years since then) I wanted this woman with me as I went back to the pole. I knew better than to go entirely alone, knew that I handle things more smoothly when I have a friend to talk to who listens without interruption or judgment, when I have a distraction from the thoughts that could run loose in my head. She'd never been to PIR before and had never seen any pictures of the pole, the track, or any of the other images I've posted here on the blog or on Flickr. And like it was for me up on Mt. Hood, being there with me helped her to see and understand everything I've told her over the past five years.

And I was grateful and glad she was there. Being at PIR with Anna in tow wasn't hard at all--but the understanding, supportive presence of a friend was a balm too. Plus it gave me someone who could appreciate my black widow humor when I joked that we were sitting between a rock and a hard place--with the pole that killed my husband on one side, and the mountain that killed hers on the other. (That's Mt. Hood in the upper left of this photo, for those who don't know.)


Anna continued to have fun romping around on the bleachers--heading up to the top to see when the racers were coming...


...and watching as racers rode past.


And eventually, she discovered her big fun of the evening: running around under the bleachers and playing peekaboo (or something like that) with me and my camera.


Before the finish of the last race (and after being there in front of the pole for almost 90 minutes), we moved up by the finish line to watch the end of the last race.





And then we went back to our cars, where I grabbed a few last pictures.





To counterattack the gnaw of discomfort in my belly while I was in the shower earlier in the afternoon, I had quickly brainstormed to see if there was anything more than my camera that I was wanting or needing to have, do, or take at the racetrack. The thought of writing on the pole again quickly came to me, as I visualized the power of watching Anna do what we'd done five years prior (and capturing pictures of it, of course). And I thought of taking Charley's racing jersey and racing number--the same number she'd worn at the Kiddie Kilo we did in honor of the first anniversary of Charley's death.


So I'd thrown some permanent markers in my bag, along with the racing jersey and number. And with the tires blocking the pole (and because we'd shown up so late, at the start of racing), I didn't remember to write on the pole...but I didn't really need to either. Having her there with me; taking pictures of her there in front of the pole, of her holding her dad's things; having my friend show up to sit with me and listen: they were all more than enough.


And the gelato afterward helped too.... ;o)