So first one to sort of echo the tragic one. I can't imagine that happening during the first race I promoted.
I'm glad you got to hold the race the following day. To be able to grieve together is important, as I learned. I credit learning that from Andrew Willis, the Driveway Series promoter in Texas, who had a tragedy at his race as well. I reached out to him in a vague way and he responded immediately, like within 10 minutes. He knew exactly what had happened even though I said something innocuous like, "I'd like to touch base with you regarding an incident that happened at my race."
I was probably in my 20th season promoting(?), in the race, when there was a fall in front of me. I rolled by one rider and it looked particularly bad. It was just a feeling, tbh, I'm not a trainer emergency person. Rider (Markus) ended up passing about half a day later - I left the hospital maybe 12:30 or 1 AM, he died at something like 4 or 5 AM. The incident got immortalized in VeloNews.
https://www.velonews.com/news/from-t...in-the-family/
At the time my life had been pretty hectic. Not only was I promoting/racing the 6 week series of races, my son was born two Saturdays before (and I promoted/raced the next day), then the second race of the season Markus hit the deck. I didn't know him but as another rider pointed out (to others), all the riders at my race were "my riders". I never realized that until I saw that comment somewhere. I have reminders on my two primary bikes - bands on both, his name on another. I'll have the band on my new bike as well.
Note bike in background - band around front of top tube (German colors plus Markus's team colors) and Markus's name at the back part of the top tube.