A chance meeting with a fallen hero
By Marty Smith, Turner Sports Interactive
September 20, 2001
1:15 PM EDT (1715 GMT)
COMMENTARY
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Marty Smith
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As is the case with many active business travelers, those of us stationed in the unremitting business of professional racing consider the airport our second residence.
We practically live there. Due to the nature of our hustle-and-bustle lifestyle, people come in and out of our lives seemingly by the hour.
For example, on a typical day, you might share the first hour-long leg of your flight from Charlotte to Indianapolis with an elderly lady from San Antonio, discussing her granddaughter's prowess in the fourth-grade spelling bee.
Then, after a brief 20-minute layover in Atlanta during which you engage in a conversation about thread count with a carpet salesman, you hop on another plane alongside a stock trader who spouts off jargon that only Charles Schwab can fathom.
Two hours later, he's gone -- never to be seen or heard from again.
My point is simple: Rarely do you encounter someone on a flight that alters your entire outlook on life.
Last Monday, Rob Quillen had one of those rare experiences.
Quillen, a NASCAR fanatic from Nebraska, called me Wednesday morning with one of the most touching stories I've ever heard. It is a story about chance, a story about love, a story about messages from a higher place. It is a story I thought would be quite appropriate to share it with the extended NASCAR family.
Here goes.
On Mon., Sept. 10, Quillen, an account executive for a software company, left his home en route to New York City for a series of business meetings. When his flight out of Lincoln, Neb., was cancelled due to inclement weather, United Airlines rerouted him to Omaha for a flight to Denver, which would then take him on to New York.
Once on the plane in Denver, Quillen sat down in anticipation of a lengthy, yet uneventful, cross-country trek to Denver. What occurred over the next four hours would change his life forever.
Alongside Quillen sat Jason Dahl, the pilot who the following morning would take off from Newark en route to San Francisco. That flight, United Flight 93, would later crash in a Shanksville, Pa. field, the victim of a terrorist attack that is linked to three earlier attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
During the four-hour flight from Denver to New York, Quillen and Dahl bonded deeply, discussing careers, goals, families and racing.
NASCAR racing.
"When we were getting ready to take off, the stewardess came over and told the two guys next to me they were in the wrong seats. They moved them and Jason came down and sat next to me," said Quillen, slowly choosing his words. "He was in a suit. He said, 'Hey, do you work for Jeff Gordon?' I was wearing a Jeff Gordon polo shirt. I said, 'No, I'm just a big fan.' He said, 'My son and I are, too.'
"We started a conversation from there, and we were talking and the stewardess came over and handed him a beer. I was like, 'How'd you pull that off?' He said, 'Well, I'm a pilot for the airlines.' I asked him what he was doing and he said he was taking that flight to Newark to fly the Newark to San Francisco flight first thing in the morning."
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Jeff Gordon signs autographs at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
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According to Quillen, Dahl was most passionate when in discussion about his family and namely his 15-year-old son, a die-hard Gordon fan who had recently been diagnosed with epilepsy.
"He said the doctors told him to watch for seizures, and if (his son) had grand mal seizures it's not going to be very good," Quillen remembered. "Sure enough, last week he had one. He said he had sat down with his son and asked him what he wanted to do for fun and his son said I want to go to a NASCAR race and see Jeff Gordon race -- and hopefully get to meet him.'"
Having already planned a customer appreciation function at Kansas Speedway for next week's event, Quillen offered Dahl two tickets. Dahl appreciatively agreed, and gave Quillen his business card, complete with home phone number and address. Quillen had planned to overnight them upon arrival back in Nebraska.
"It was weird because we heard about the first flight, we walked outside and were looking at it and I decided to call my wife," Quillen said. "I turned around, and I heard people screaming. It was the second explosion. It never crossed my mind that it could have been him.
"We cancelled our meetings, and I was sitting there talking to a friend of mine in Texas and he was talking about a flight in Pennsylvania. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I pulled out my wallet and looked at the business card. I immediately went back to the room and tried to get more information on the flight. They said it was the United flight from Newark to San Francisco. I knew it in my heart right then. I just knew."
Now, Quillen has made it his mission to make Dahl's dream come true. It is his quest to set up a meeting between Dahl's son and Gordon. He began by summoning me for help, and it's the least I could do to honor a fallen hero, one who risked his own life to fight off the gutless bastards who hijacked his plane with the intent of killing innocent citizens.
"There's a message in this for me, Marty," Quillen told me. "I don't know what the hell it is. But I was put on that plane next to him for a reason. To even be in Denver. Maybe someone knew this whole thing was going to happen and I was chosen as the way to get his son to see Jeff Gordon."
Hopefully this column will assist Quillen in his pursuit. If nothing else, I hope it serves to alert its readers that in the hustle and bustle of every day life, there are feelings, stories and emotions behind every one of those faces.
Embrace every one you can.
Marty Smith's column appears every Thursday on NASCAR.com and the opinions listed here and solely those of the writer. To reach Marty by email, drop him a line at marty.smith@turner.com.
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