Death
Despite the setbacks, Bonnett was encouraged because he had secured a ride and sponsorship for at least six races in the 1994 season with car owner James Finch, including the season opening Daytona 500, for Phoenix Racing. But on February 11, 1994, during the first practice session for the 1994 Daytona 500, Bonnett's car suffered a right front tire failure in the track's fourth turn. Bonnett's car hit the outside wall nearly head-on. Bonnett was taken to nearby Halifax Medical Center, but he had died on impact. He is buried in Pleasant Grove's cemetery, Forest Grove Memorial Gardens. A road called "Allison-Bonnett Memorial Drive" in his hometown honors him, along with fellow native Davey Allison, who died a year earlier.
When Brad Keselowski scored Phoenix Racing's first Sprint Cup win 15 years later at the 2009 Aaron's 499, Finch dedicated the win to Bonnett.
Read more about this topic: Neil Bonnett
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter’s honor.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“Why wait for Death to mow?
why wait for Death to sow
us in the ground?”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death freely chosen, death at the right time, brightly and cheerfully accomplished amid children and witnesses: then a real farewell is still possible, as the one who is taking leave is still there; also a real estimate of what one has wished, drawing the sum of one’s life—all in opposition to the wretched and revolting comedy that Christianity has made of the hour of death.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)