I feel obligated to say something here because I knew Danny well and he was a close friend. Danny and I spoke regularly on the phone exchanging research results of NY racing history and I was his technical guy when he had questions about how to do certain things with video editing. There were times when the batteries on our phones would die before we had a chance to get to another phone, and we'd have to call each other back to pick up where we left off. It was nothing to start a phone conversation at 10 pm and finish at 2:30 am. Sometimes we'd have to call it a night and resume the next night.
Danny was as addicted to racing in all aspects as anyone was, and I think that is why he and I got along so well. In recent years, Danny had confided that he knew his physical racing career was coming to a close and that this history thing was how he planned on staying involved. I was only too happy to assist him in learning how to capture and edit video.
NOBODY uncovered more vintage racing film that Danny did. NOBODY. Danny would start a conversation with an old timer at a vintage racing party, at the antique shop or at a race car show and people liked him immediately. Before the conversation would end, some of the people would hand him a reel of film or tell him where he could find it. Danny is the undisputed king at this. Danny was also very likable at first impression, and people felt like they could trust him because of that. You only get one opportunity at a first impression and Danny batted 1000 in this category.
Danny takes with him thousands and thousands of mental notes about NY racing history... enough to write a good series of books about it. The loss from a historian's standpoint is as devastating as a library/museum fire because he truly is irreplaceable.
I'll close this off by saying that I am going to miss this guy as much as anyone will, and that is a fact. Save me a good seat, my friend. Until then, thank you for everything.