By Holly Zachariah
The Columbus Dispatch
HEBRON, Ohio — The thousands of people at National Trail Raceway fell silent yesterday as the race-car drivers approached the ambulance one by one to say goodbye to a sick friend.
No sounds came from the grandstand, no power tools whirred in the pits. Even Eddie Blankenship, announcer for the 17th Annual Chrysler Classic at the Hebron racetrack, was quiet.
“There didn’t seem to be anything I could say,” he said.
On a gurney in the back of the ambulance parked at the starting line was 52-year-old Michael Rolfes, a concrete-truck driver from Johnstown.
Rolfes learned just weeks ago that he has liver cancer, and doctors told him there was nothing anyone could do.
But people did something, all right.
Rolfes has long been a race fan and driver, and he is especially proud of his forest-green, 1992 Dodge Daytona, which can run a quarter-mile in 9.6 seconds.
Donna Rolfes said that since the day of her husband’s diagnosis, he has said that he wanted that car to run down the track at this weekend’s race, even if he was too sick to drive it.
Rolfes was admitted to OhioHealth’s Kobacker House in Columbus as a hospice patient Wednesday, and doctors squelched the family’s plan to take him to the race themselves.
Although he quickly lost his strength — by yesterday, he couldn’t speak much — he still made the trip.
At the starting line, the ambulance doors were thrown open, and Rolfes could hear and see his best friend, Steve Finnicum, do a whale of a burnout in the Daytona and take off down the track.
A parade of other race cars driven by Rolfes’ friends followed. Then, they stopped their cars and came to say goodbye.
It was sad and painful, yet heartwarming, Donna Rolfes said.
“It gave him his last wish,” she said. “What more could anyone want?”
Copyright 2009 The Columbus Dispatch
All Rights Reserved