Shaun Carlson passes

 

 

 

Shaun's service was amazing, but very heart wrenching. I definately wasn't prepared for his two young nieces to sing this song for him. There were at least a couple hundred people there to pay their respects to him. If you ever saw him or knew, you would have known that Shaun was a showman. With his bleach blond mowhawk, his bling, his piercings, and his rides, he really knew how to market himself . So it was no surprise to me to see some of our friends dressed in church the way they always do, wearing dickies shorts, sleaves showing, mowhawks, etc...!!

 

The reception was held at the NHRA Museum in Pomona. The museum had set up a very cool photo display of the cars he built, and there were two of his drifting cars out front. It was great to see so many old friends there, abeit under truly sad circumstances.

 

Shaun died from a genetic heart problem and he was only 35. He suffered from 5 heart attacks or so in the past year, two of them he didn't need, one from the pacemaker shorting out and one from the treadmill. How many people have to die from stressing their hearts on a treadmill before they stop making them do it?! One of my dad's friends died that way!

 

To quote a friend, "That pacemaker was too small to run Shaun's big heart!".

To quote Shaun, "Word!".

 

When we spoke, we didn't dwell on the doom gloom. It was always about what we were going to do next. He was always going flat out, and I had told him many times to slow down as he was going to crash like I did a few years ago. And fortunately recently he finally listened, and he and his fiance Devin came down to just hang out and chill for several hours at my house - good times.

 

Anyway, in retrospec, I now know was very lucky to have worked with him so closely over the years. I knew he had done some very cool things in the past before our paths converged, but I really had no idea what he had done outside of racing until his family and friends spoke of his accomplishments. In a word - Stunning!

 

I know that there is a coffee table photo album already in the works covering his racing carreer as seen threw the lens of a camera. When it comes available, I'll let you folks know.

 

This weekend at Irwindale, there will be a drfiting event and his team will be there competing and there will be of course some tributes made to Shaun. If you have never seen a drifting event, this would be a good one to go to. Saturday would be the best day to go too.

 

And lastly I know he was smiling down on me yesterday. Not because I was there, but because I loaded an engine into my van in the parking lot of the church after the service!

 

GodSpeed Shaun!