OP_062118

26 | June 21, 2018 | The orland park prairie life & Arts
opprairie.com
Paddock: Honoring Toppen at track is ‘poetic’
Fallen soldier to be
honored at NASCAR race
T.J. Kremer III
Contributing Editor
Thursday, June 28, will mark
the beginning of a special weekend
at Joliet’s Chicagoland Motor
Speedway. It’ll be Stars and Stripes
weekend, where NASCAR and the
speedway will team up to highlight
our nation’s military members,
past, present and future.
Among the sea of red, white
blue, placed firmly on NASCAR
driver and US Navy reservist’s Jesse
Iwuji’s car, will be an homage to
one of Mokena’s favorite sons, lost
too soon while fighting in Afghanistan:
Pfc. Aaron Toppen.
President of Chicagoland Speedway,
Orland Park’s Scott Paddock,
happens to also be a member of
Parkview Christian Church, where
the Toppen family members are
also members, so Paddock has a
familiarity with the Toppens and
Aaron’s story.
“For it to come full circle now,
here to the racetrack, is really kind
of ironic, and maybe it’s kind of
poetic and meant to be that he’ll
be honored now and his memory
will continue to stay alive in a very
powerful way to Thursday’s ARCA
race,” Paddock said.
And for Aaron to get the national
exposure that a NASCAR race
broadcast in 175 countries will
bring is kind of a big deal.
“It’s a pretty big platform, and
I think it just reinforces what we
want to convey, and what NAS-
CAR wants to convey, with our
appreciation for our brave service
men and women, and Aaron is certainly
one of them,” Paddock said.
It’s been a long, winding journey
for Aaron to end up on a vehicle
that can travel nearly 200 mph, a
journey that began at the speedway
in 2014, just months after his death.
Banner event
Guido Falaschetti — whose son,
Gino, was a close friend of Aaron’s
since second grade — decided to
make a large banner to hang and T-
Friends who gather each year at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet pose with the banner and T-shirts they
wear to show support for and honor Pfc. Aaron Toppen, who was killed while serving in Afghanistan. Photo
submitted
shirts for himself and his group of
tailgating friends to wear to honor
Aaron that year.
“I brought one of the banners,
and we hung it up at our tent, and
people were coming by and they
recognized Aaron’s name and his
picture,” Falaschetti said. “And
we had so many people just stopping
by saying, ‘Wow, I saw that
on the news. I saw the procession
going to the cemetery from Midway,
back and forth.’ And we had
so many people who came and donated
money and said, ‘You know
what?! Donate this to the family,
donate this to the armed forces.’
And it was beautiful.”
The group had already been collecting
money at the race for various
charities since 2001. But when
Toppen was killed, they decided to
turn their efforts to supporting the
Toppen family and their charitable
cause.
“When Aaron passed away, the
guys decided that that’s a charity
we’re going to support and keep
his name alive,” Dell said.
Bridgeview Bank, Dell’s employer,
has long supported the military
community, having donated
about $2.6 million to various military-based
charitable organizations
over the years. It’s a cause that
the bank’s President, Todd Jones,
is passionate about, Dell said. So,
when Dell started telling his coworkers
and supervisors about his
group of friends and the part they
play in keeping Toppen’s memory
going, it seemed like a natural fit
for Bridgeview Bank to step in
and lend its hand at participating,
too. And since the bank already
sponsored a NASCAR car, the one
driven by Iwuji, the group now had
access to a literal vehicle to further
Toppen’s legacy.
“I was talking to the President
[of Bridgeview Bank], Todd Jones,
about the group and the guys and
what we do, and we started talking
about Aaron and how we want to
keep Aaron’s name alive, and we
want to have people know about
him,” Dell said. “And [Jones]
had an idea: ‘Well, why don’t we
put something on the car to honor
him?’”
And so Falaschetti, who by now
had gotten to know the rest of the
Toppen family, brought Aaron’s
mother, Pam, the news about the
plans for next week’s race.
It just so happened that Pam’s
husband passed four months before
Aaron, and it was on her husband’s
birthday that she got the call from
Falaschetti to let her know about
the race.
Emotions run high
“It was a pretty emotional
thing,” Pam said. “Every time
something strange like that comes
up out of the clear blue it’s like a
Godsend thing. You feel like, hey,
he’s up there and he’s still making
sure… And it’s for him and what
he stood for that we will continue
to do this.”
The Toppen organization —
which goes by the name Our Fallen
Hero in Memory of Pfc. Aaron
Toppen and is currently awaiting
approval for 501(c)3 status — supports
numerous charitable organizations,
including the Pat Tillman
Foundation, Lincolnway
Special Recreation Association,
Puppies Behind Bars, Operation
Warrior Wishes, the Fisher House
Foundation, a Lincoln-Way East
scholarship and a veterans food
drive through Parkview Christian
Church in Orland Park.
Pam said there were two choices
the family had when Aaron was
killed: be mad or be involved and
help others as much as they can.
“We have met so many wonderful
people by doing these charities
and raising these funds for these
different charities. It’s just been
amazing,” Pam said.
Iwuji honors Toppen
The enormity of the stage and
message isn’t lost on Iwuji, either.
“It means a lot to me… With
everything I do, I try to bring an
awareness to those who are serving
now and those who will be serving
in the future,” Iwuji said.
“He gave his life serving his
country. He paid that ultimate sacrifice
so that we could be free and
have a weekend like the Chicagoland
weekend, where we could go
out on a race weekend, race at Chicagoland
Speedway, have a good
time with it and do it without being
ruled by some other country or under
oppression or being persecuted.
He gave his life so we could do it
freely. So, it’s the least I could do
to honor him and bring awareness
about what he did for his country.
Through my entire time of racing,
I’m going to continue doing things
like that to help honor our service
members.”
For Pam, the opportunity to
spread Aaron’s message through
the help of complete strangers can
be shocking, but is certainly welcome.
“It’s amazing to my daughters
and I that it happens and it continues
to happen when we least expect it,”
Pam said. “I don’t know where we
would be without the outpouring of
support of the community, friends,
family, church. I mean, it’s just been
amazing, and it’s been four years
now and it’s still happening… Life
goes on, and we have a new chapter
in our life, but we don’t want to forget
that chapter.”