Thank you for the Missing Man Formation tribute that you arranged for my son Brett Brillinger at the [2009] Labor Day MARRS race. As you may know, beginning in the late 1980’s, my daughter Beth (Buff) and my sons Brett and Brian and I all ran the MARRS series over almost fifteen years in our three family ITB BMW 2002’s.

The last time Brett ran at Summit was the 2006 Labor Day race, but he was preparing to enter the fray again last Sunday. He had renewed his license, gotten an annual tech for his car, bought and mounted a new set of Hoosiers for it and was about to send in his entry when he decided to check with the hospital about a pain that he was starting to experience. He passed away four days later following surgery. He had an advanced lymphoma cancer with bone marrow involvement.

His BMW is still up on jack stands in the garage with its log book on its dash, his uniform bag on its floor and the mounted Hoosers ready to bolt on. I’m not sure when I’ll have the courage to take it down off of those jack stands.

Brett’s wife Amy and his daughter Autumn, as well as Buff and I attended the Labor Day race and we believe that it was a fitting goodbye to a truly nice guy who loved the sport so much. But he might have been embarrassed by the attention.

Thank you again,

Henry Brillinger