Yahoo Autos Emotions running high for Susie Wheldon ahead of ‘Lionheart’ streaming debut
The documentary ‘Lionheart’ on the life of late IndyCar champion and two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon will make its streaming debut on Max on Tuesday, March 12. The film has a heavy emphasis on Wheldon’s legacy, featuring his wife Susie and sons Sebastian and Oliver, who’ve followed their father into open-wheel racing.
For the matriarch of the family, the greater availability of Lionheart is a welcome development, but one that also carries a lot of emotional weight.
“The movie has been three years in the making if we count when filming first started and there’s been some sneak peeks with it at certain festivals, but now as the day creeps closer, you’re like, ‘Oh, man, do you really want to open up your soul to the rest of the world?’” Wheldon told RACER.
“It’s overwhelming. It’s all the emotions, right? I’m a little nervous just to kind of show that vulnerability.”
A viewing party will be held this week in St. Petersburg, site of IndyCar’s season opener, where a large segment of the paddock has been invited to watch Lionheart. Some of the attendees were there at the Las Vegas IndyCar race in 2011 when Wheldon was killed in a brutal crash.
“A lot of people obviously do know the story, and lots of people, especially those that’ll be in the audience in St. Pete, some of them were there and experienced things as well that day,” Wheldon said. “So there’s all of those kinds of things running through my mind. But I think the story is much bigger than that, because you can really tap into it just on a human level. And even people that aren’t motor racing fans or even fans of Dan, I think there’s so many universal themes throughout the movie to pick up on.
“Family, obviously, being a big one, and legacy, and then just tragedy and grief and how you move on from that. And it’s the love story of Dan and I and the boys. And obviously, their goal is to carry on and carry on his legacy in racing. It’s a story of hope, ultimately, and that you can kind of move forward in a way that can still be beautiful.”
The Wheldons are a fixture in motor racing, but with the documentary’s move to Max, they are likely to be recognized by a much larger group of people as they go about their lives each day. Wheldon says she’s prepared for the newfound interest to be shown in Dan and hopes the interactions continue to enrich her family.
“I’ve definitely had a small taste of that with people that have wanted to share their stories about Dan and come up to me and tell me their experiences with him or memories that they have,” she said. “I do appreciate that so much and I get a lot of joy from stories that I haven’t heard before. It definitely is so humbling and makes me really proud that he’s still out there impacting people and they haven’t forgotten and he’s left this legacy that can’t be denied.
“It is a little scary with the movie going out to a platform that’s so big, but for me, it’s a chance to share the story now on a global level. It’s been healing in a lot of ways and I am open to sharing our healing with others.”
