Craig Nylander Remembers Michael Figliomeni.
Author :
What the heck happened on Saturday night [28/10/06]? One minute I’m talking to a good friend, my ex-Brother in Law, and an absolute legend while he waits in his racecar to start his 2nd heat, and the next thing Allan Blake is telling me that he thinks he has just died!
While I’m trying to figure out what’s going on I see Terry Dorrington [Motorplex Chaplain] drive past in his cart with Mrs Fig [Fig’s Mum] and her distress is visible, pretty much confirming what I have just heard.
Two days later it still completely blows me away that this could happen and then I see a picture in the West Australian Newspaper of Fig from last season looking as fit, healthy, and strong as he ever did, and it makes it even harder to comprehend.
How does this guy simply drop dead? This is a guy that notches chrome moly tubing with tin snips! A guy that could drive a wheel barrow and still make the rest of us mortals look like beginners. Much more than that he was simply a terrific guy, in fact one of the best I have ever met, and I know that anyone who met him would agree, not just some, but all.
I’ve been very, very fortunate to know Fig since my late teens and in the entire time I knew him, he was this legend of a bloke. For a while I was proud to call him my Brother in Law and to my two sons he was always Uncle Michael, even though my youngest wasn’t even born when Mike was married to Leah.
For one reason or another things didn’t work out for him and my sister, but as always Mike was an absolute Gentleman and despite the hurt continued to treat the rest of us like Family still. I know that each and every one of us Nylanders still feel so much love and respect for the guy. Dad was very fond of Michael and was in fact arranging for Fig to run his Late Model a few times this season, this was something Fig told me while he was waiting in the chute to start his 2nd and very last race. He told me how he had some sponsors teed up to help and how he was looking forward to it.
Being able to drive anything was his strength and he loved trying different things and cars. I couldn’t help but think over the past few years that he had spread himself around a bit too much and hadn’t done himself justice. Of course he kept winning in the Sprintcar and the Midget, but how many Australian Titles would this guy have won if he had focused purely on this? But who’s motivation is this? Probably mine. Fig wanted to prove himself in all things, not just one division and it goes without saying that he did this without question.
I’m unashamedly a Fig groupie and have been forever it seems. I’ve watched an awful lot of Speedway in my 39 years and some absolute legends. But as biased as I am I don’t believe there has ever been a guy that could build the engines, the chassis, set them up, and then drive the tyres off the things like he could. In my small mind there is no doubt he was the best ever, in WA at least. BIG call? Maybe, but the evidence speaks for itself.
I’m not one to reminisce but the nights spent watching Fig dominate the opposition in his number 34 from the Legends Bar at Fowlhouse Corner Claremont, will always be etched in my mind, and I hope those memories remain with me for a long time to come. I remember watching horrified as he barrel-rolled the car down the main straight with the cage smashed to pieces. Somehow he managed to survive that albeit with a neck brace. He was only inches away from it then.
But it wasn’t a car that got him, his body did. He could control everything else. Maybe it would have made more sense another way?
I can only begin to imagine the hurt that Mr and Mrs Fig, Stephen, Jonnine, Frankie, and Andrew are feeling right now and my heart just bleeds for his young 3 year old Son Tyler and his lovely Wife Valerie. That’s the part that just gets you, it’s not about how I feel right now, it’s about the Family and the poor little boy that will never get to know his Dad.
For most of my adult life I have seen the familiar sight of Mr Fig’s bus pulling into the pits and the always amazing #34 roll out of the back, God I’m gonna miss that. I will never forget one of his Australian Title wins when on the 1st night Fig suffered engine problems. With the help of his friend Greg at CGC Engineering they repaired the cylinder head and patched the rest of the engine back together. What does he do then? What he normally did … went on to win of course. That was just typical though, he possessed a real mechanical sympathy to go with the plethora of other talents that he had.
My motives in writing this are probably a bit therapeutic I guess, but for those that weren’t as fortunate to know him, this is also a [poor] attempt to tell a little more about the man. I know I can’t express things as well as another Figgo friend Wade Aunger would, but I simply couldn’t let him go without putting this in writing.
I have had the absolute honour of knowing two of the biggest stars ever in WA Speedway, in Ian “Bonza” Bradford and now Michael “the Magic Man” Figliomeni. Bonzas death still hurts and the loss of Fig will hurt even more.
Fig, you were a bloody legend Mate and always will be, it is fitting that you dominated your last two races ever and I promise we will remember you forever. I hope with all my heart that the Speedway fraternity recognizes your amazing efforts in some way for future generations, much as it has with the memory of Laurie Mathews, who I also knew as a kid.
Things will NEVER be the same.
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