A quiet voice of reason in a very loud sport

Shav’s passing at 87 is as shocking to me as if some other friend had died at 37. It seems so premature because Shav had come to seem so indestructible. Some years ago, I counted four life-threatening illnesses he’d beaten over the years.

Shav was tough in a gentle, often quiet way, with impeccable manners even in frantic situations. I often marveled at his patience at, for example, waiting until temperamental Formula One drivers decided to consent to be interviewed.

I don’t remember Shav ever once losing his temper under fire. Indeed, I don’t recall his ever even raising his voice, except when he had to in order to tell you something over the screams of the engines in the pits or garages.

He was a renowned veteran when I began covering motor racing, and that was 33 years ago. But his interests were so current and his conversations so lively that only twice did I ever sense how much older than me Shav was.

Once was when he mentioned that he’d sat beside Jackie Robinson in some of their classes in high school. The other time he, Bill Center and I were in a conversation about the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, and Shav mentioned that he was in the Army and would have been in the ground invasion force of the Japanese home islands if atomic weapons hadn’t been used.

The more it sinks in that Shav is really gone, the shock only increases rather than decreases. I’d come to take for granted that Shav would easily see 100.

Truly, Shav died young.

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Ed Hinton covers auto racing for Tribune newspapers.