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Sad news has reached us that Don Adamson has passed away from a massive heart attack while at home.
Don was a dedicated Flagger and Turn Marshal for at least 16 years, working at just about every event. He was truly an excellent flagger and master of all situations wherever he was stationed.
He served 4 years an assistant chief on the F&C crew and things always seemed to go well when Don was in charge!
His manner was often gruff and his opinions were expressed in a blunt and straightforward way and everybody respected him a lot. He could also be a very funny person when the mood took him there.
Alan Mertens
Flag Crew Chief
Gregg Schlaman has created a very nice Tribute Page for Don. Take a moment to remember. A Tribute To Don Adamson
I just have a few words to say about Don Adamson, who passed away from a massive heart attack on Jan 25 2003.
We all have friends and if you are lucky, you can count your true friends on one hand. You are truly blessed when you can count your true friends on one finger. Don was my one true friend.
I met Don in 1997 and really liked him the first time I met him. He tried to shoo me away, but I wouldn't go! We had some great times on and off the track. We stood together on beautiful spring days on turns at Sears Point and Laguna Seca. We went shooting together and spent hours talking on the phone. We enjoyed fishing together.
We shared the worst of times on and off the track also: Thunderhill - freezing cold and wet and god-awful hot! Don and I were working together at turn 8 at Sears Point when Derek Israel was killed racing at our turn.
I always told Don that that before I die, I want to see a bigfoot. He told me that wanted to see a ghost so that he would know that there is an afterlife. I still want to see Bigfoot, but I also want to see a ghost myself so that I know I'll see Don again in the afterlife.
One last thing: Don told me he never went for those public moments of silence. So if you want to say a prayer for him, just say "Hi"......
I will miss my friend.
-- Irv Stump, SFR flagger
I will always remember Don for his smile and his laughter...
The few times I had the pleasure to work with him were indeed a pleasure.
On occasion he would start going off about something or other, which eventually would leave me with a belly ache and tears in my eyes
from laughing so hard...now my tears are for the region's loss.
-- Michael Edick
Don was one of the first flaggers I met after joining SCCA--after Jimmy Heitzman--and one of the main reasons why I stayed with the Club.
For some strange reason Don's humor and digs always made me feel right at home.
Although we didn't see him as much the last couple of years, I always looked for him at each track.
I'll really miss you, Don.
-- Cornelia Bell
ADAMSON, Donald - Age 50, passed away suddenly on January 25th. A race car lover, Donald was a flagman for a number of raceways. He also enjoyed the outdoors and was a history buff. He is survived by his loving parents Robert and Imogene Adamson; his brother Robert Adamson and sister Edyth Micheli. No services. Contributions may be made to the American Heart Assoc.
I can't believe the news...Don is gone? How could that even be? He has always been one of my favorite people at the track. We've sat many an evening and talked about everything and nothing.
We also had a little inside joke...we worked together at the old Turn 8 at Thunderhill one weekend. This was before any landline communications (which was the only thing I was used to) and we had radios. Well, as often happens, the pace car came out to deliver the grid sheets and I asked Don if he'd go trackside and get them for me. As he brought them back, he just stopped in his tracks. We both realized that I was on the radio, not attached to anything. I could have walked trackside and gotten my own grid sheets.
That might not seem like much, but in the 8 or so years since that, he teased me mercilessly! He'd walk by and mumble something about communicators that made the Turn Marshals do all the work, or ask me how my feet were feeling that day and that kind of thing.
Oh, man. It hasn't really sunk in yet but now it's starting to. I'm going to miss him so much.
Don, who's going to get my grid sheets now? Who am I going to talk to about all the concerts I've seen and who I've met and relationships and what happened on my turn today while sitting in an ancient bus after the third l-o-n-g day of NASCAR?
God doesn't give us many people as special and caring as Don. I am glad I appreciated him while he was in my life.
I can hear his laugh in my head and I hope I always will.
-- Lisa Simoni
Yet one more corner covered for eternity......
It saddens to have to come to grips with Don's passing. I didn't know him well, but I've known him for a very long time.
I've been doing my thing with the club for nearly a decade now, and Don has been a memorable part of that since Day One. Had a certain Mr.Kyne
not been more persuasive than a certain Mr.Adamson, I would be wearing white instead of yellow on club weekends. These two gentlemen were the
noble opposition for my racing soul lo those many years ago. Sadly we have lost them both.
Sometimes life ain't fun.
Don was one of those folks whose location I always took note of when orbitting a track on one of the Rescue trucks. Don't get me wrong, all
our corner people are great - the best there is, truely. I rely on them all more than they can know, but Don was one of the few whose presence
and prescience I could always feel on a hot track. We all covet our lifelines when we find them. Don certainly was that and more.
The biggest gift Don gave me was on the occasion of when he and a couple others on behalf of the Flagging crew presented me with my first "Worker
of the Weekend" award. I received that honor for an event that was truely a horrible event in every other way. His heartfelt, decidedly not
practiced, private words to me then, still resonate with me today, and make me better at what I do. They were the right words at exactly the
right time.
I hope my words here can come reasonably close to express what his gift meant to me.
I will surely miss him.
-- Dale Hoag , SFR E-crew.
I am so sorry to hear about Don! I have many fond memories of sitting around a campfire,
bench-flagging late into the night...
He will be greatly missed.
-- pat (pyro) caruthers
Email The Web Team to pass along your memories of Don. We'll be sure to pass them on to the family. If you'd like your remembrances of Don posted on this page, then let us know that too.
