Mike Langston
This page is in memory of Mike Langston, a close friend of the sim racing community who
lost his battle with terminal liver cancer. The NASS 1998 racing season was
dedicated to Mike, and if you'll bear with me for a minute, I'd like to share a bit of our
history together, and give you some insight as to who Mike was.
Mike was a dedicated sim racer, more than many of us. Mike was an early tester
for both the Hawaii and NROS systems. And like many of us, Mike spent literally
thousands of dollars in phone bills doing this. His only reward was knowing
that what he was doing was helping the sim racing community to some day have
a place where we could all cyber-race together. There was plenty of frustration
associated with this, but Mike stuck with it. As things continue to evolve in
online racing, we all have guys like Mike to thank for it.
Mike joined up with the HAL (Hawaii Ace League) that ran at the Hawaii and NROS
systems. Although Mike wasn't the fastest guy on the track, he did the best he
could, and became a staple of the HAL community. He was known to most as "Mondo Mike",
and he was quite a character. Mike would do the best he could
to make the races, even as the cancer ravaged his body, and would often drive in
pain until he couldn't stand it any longer.
I knew Mike for quite a few years. We started modem racing back in the
days of ICR, and then with Nascar Racing. You could call Mike anytime day
or night, and he'd be up for a race. One night a few years back, I answered a
knock at my door, only to find Mike standing there. He had driven nearly
8 hours just to meet me face to face. We spent a couple of days together,
getting to know one another, talking racing, and then he was gone. I was
impressed that he would go to such great lengths, but it's just the kind
of guy that Mike was.
Unfortunately, Mike lost his battle with cancer late in 1998 (9/11/98). Several sim
racers made the trip to Mike's funeral, because they all knew that Mike would have
done the same had the table been reversed. For me personally, it was an
eye-opening experience, meeting Mike's family members and seeing old photos of
the Mike I never knew.
He may be gone, but not forgotten......Godspeed buddy.
