It isn’t bloody right, and it sure as hell isn’t bloody fair.

Why do we always seem to lose the good guys?

It’s been 14 hours since my mobile started ringing and all I feel is numb, and judging by the way the other friends I have spoken to sound, most of WA feels the same overwhelming emotion.

Figgo was too many things to leave us this early.

Too nice a guy.

Too physically fit.

Too damn likeable.

Too bloody talented.

Too well loved by everyone.

It doesn’t seem that long ago since Fig made his debut at Claremont Speedway in the Super Sedan.

I guess that was the late eighties? My memory’s a bit rusty but I think it was a black and silver Pontiac or something.

It wasn’t overly pretty and I don’t remember him fairing all that very well, but I do remember he fronted up the next year or so with a Sigma powered Speedcar and immediately began to make people notice.

He kept the damn thing so straight.

Whilst Lancey, Jonesy and guys like Fergie Donaldson, The Watsons and Wayne Cover had so much horsepower, Figgo used what little he had in lethal fashion.

With a brilliant background in BMX, MX and Sunday league football Michael has been a determined and committed participant in anything he turned his hand to – visit Mr. and Mrs. Figliomeni’s house and you’ll see the obvious rewards of a naturally athletic but humble man who accrued an enormous range of trophies.

Of course, his brothers Stephen, Andrew, Frankie and sister Jonine were and are pretty handy at trophy collecting too!

When I think back on my times with Fig, I feel so privileged.

This old photo that was stuck on the WASDA clubrooms in Wembley of Michael with a Cowboy hat and a log chopper shirt chowing down on some chips or something with the most classic grin plays across my mind constantly since last night.

How good was he?

And I mean right from the start.

Even with a Sigma you could see he had what it took.

Ever the innovator he began toying with new set ups and chassis designs that few people ever considered.

Remember the blue and green Fighter chassis with the white squiggly line through it? Man he was so proud of that car. I referred to it in a Speedcar column in the Claremont Speedway program once as the “Mr. Squiggle” car and Figgo was appalled.

Not long after he redesigned the bonnet and made it a smoother, more polished look from its original boxier angle. The bright white roll cage made it look fast and clean just sitting there.

The yellow white and red Burnett Transport #34 Murphy was personally one of my favourites, but that horrendous crash after he rode Wayne Cover’s wheel coming out of turn four at the big Claremont track (the original) buried that car and landed Figs in hospital for some time.

Seems like only yesterday I visited him and Leah as he lay there with the neck brace.

I’m pretty sure it was that crash that stirred him to begin building his own cars.

What a designer.

What a creator.

What a brilliant thinker.

I remember once during the defence of his Australian title at Claremont the car was way off in his heat race and I happened to catch him in a moment of complete concentration.

He’d chased off the crew, and was sitting on a milk crate under the pavilion looking at the #1 about six feet away.

After a minute of contemplation he’d get up, go to a corner of the car and change this,
change that, add weight here, put a turn in there.

Then he’d go back to the milk crate.

He smoked ‘em later that night, like he did and would on so many occasions.

He had such an intimate knowledge and understanding of his cars.

It could be a Super Sedan, a Sprintcar, a late model, a Speedcar or a MX bike and it looked faster with Fig behind the controls.

I remember Tommy Watson Jr challenging Figs to a chin up contest at Narrogin and the normally shy Michael taking him up on the offer and completing the required number asked of him with one arm!

He was great like that, seemed like there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.

The fun time the Figliomeni boys must have had over the years…

I once went down to Manjimup for a Country Speedcar Series with Mr and Mrs. Fig, Leah, Michael and the boys on the “Fig Bus”.

Mmm. Home made Hawaiian pizza cooked on the bus grill.

And then of course there’s the pasta nights at the Fig home each week as well – I’ve been lucky enough to have experienced a few of those.

The beauty of Michael is that he was the same person each time you saw him.

Kind. Gentle. Always pleased to see you. Never too busy for a chat.

It was a simple pleasure to watch the guy work on a racecar. Welding helmet popped up on his sweaty forehead, that toothy grin and those giant sized dimples.

He always made an effort to fully explain what he meant too.

If you cut him off, sometimes you missed the best part of what he was saying.

That’s because he took his time to make his point – not unlike most things he did, they were always done at his own speed, in his own time, in his own way.

He had the softest handshake.

It really belied the intensity and the competitiveness of his nature.

Only today at Oran Park, when I told a genuinely shocked and saddened V8 Supercar star Garth Tander of Michael’s passing last night, Tander remarked on the same thing.

”I remember when he’d come over here (the East) and run some nationals, he’d love kicking their ass. He wouldn’t say so, because he wasn’t that kind of guy, but I know he got enormous satisfaction from kicking butt at places where he had no track time. He was a fantastic guy.”

Sports Sedan star Tony Ricciardello was similarly complimentary.

“I raced BMX against Michael, he was such a competitive person. I’m so sad that he’s gone, he was a tremendous person.”

V8 Ute star Kerry Wade was similarly impressed when we spoke of Fig last weekend at the Indy 300 in Surfers Paradise.

“There’s nothing the guy can’t do. Building cars, welding, fabricating, racing, setting cars up, he was an absolute genius in so many ways, and of course a really great person.”

Typically a shy person who shunned the spotlight and preferred to let the racecar do the talking, Fig stunned us all with an amazing show of courage in the Riders and Drivers Revue when he showed up in a white tuxedo and mimed (with some serious dance moves) “Minnie the Moocher” with brothers Frankie and Stephen playing back up as the Blues Brothers band.

Fig really came out of his shell that night; I still can’t believe it’s him when I watch the video!

But then again, I guess it comes back to the fact that he seemed to be able to do it all.

One night as I commented another typically supreme drive from the pilot of the #34 the words “Magic Man” sprung from my lips and it wasn’t long before Wet Paint Signs MD Terry “TJ” Clare had fashioned some new black and fluro pink shirts under the same umbrella.

I’m proud to say, so much prouder now, that the tag Magic Man was something race fans and race rivals associated him with for years to come.

Figgo’s car control had to be seen to be believed.

His attention to detail in his racecar design both admired and revered.

It’s only fitting really that the last hour before he passed away last night was spent giving the Speedcar field a good old fashioned belting in his latest model FIGhter rocketship.

Appropriate too that a lot of his last dialogue was with brother and friend Stephen.

A devoted, dedicated and fiercely proud family man, Michael had so many qualities that made him a remarkable person.

I am so damn lucky and so very proud to have known him.

I wish I knew what to say to his beautiful wife Valerie, his loving parents, and his awesome little fella Tyler – the apple of Figgy’s eye.

I know that none of us will let Tyler forget what a truly great person his Dad was.

If you had the pleasure of watching Fig take the big stick to the Speedcar big guns both here and in the USA, or the knowledge to understand what he could do with chrome moly tubing, you too were truly lucky.

He drove that number 34 like no one else can, he was Michael Figliomeni, the Magic Man.