Bittersweet IndyCar ‘tradition’ continues on New Year’s Day

An annual “tradition” involving deceased former IndyCar driver Justin Wilson continued this past Saturday for New Year’s Day.

IndyCar driver Justin Wilson succumbed to injuries suffered in a fluke accident at Pocono Raceway back in August 2015.

Late in the race on Sunday, August 23, Wilson was in the wrong place at the wrong time coming out of turn one of the three-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) triangular track in Long Pond, Pennsylvania when the nose cone from the crashed car of Sage Karam bounced across the track and struck his helmet.

Wilson immediately became a passenger and his car veered left into the inside retaining barrier. He passed away the following day at the age of 37 in Allentown at Lehigh Valley Hospital. It was later determined that he died from blunt force trauma to his head.

However, the past few years have seen a “tradition” involving Wilson on New Year’s Day.

At roughly 2:00 a.m. ET on January 1, Wilson’s Twitter account wishes followers a “Happy New Year”. It appears to be an automated message set up through IFTTT.

This tradition, which has become somewhat of a bittersweet and nostalgic one for IndyCar fans, continued once more this past Saturday at 1:59 a.m. ET.

Justin’s brother Stefan, an IndyCar driver himself, had this to say about the matter, and we can safely say that he speaks for the rest of us.

Oddly enough, this doesn’t appear to have been set up prior to 2018, as there were no “Happy New Year” tweets in 2016 and 2017, the first two years following Justin’s tragic passing.

These tweets are the only tweets associated with his account since a statement was made by his wife Julia in December 2015.

Hopefully this is a tradition that we can all continue to look forward to every New Year’s Day, and nothing ends up interfering with this automatic setup.