Fallen Arizona Marine to be honored at Coca-Cola 600

Normally, the strip across the front windshield of every Sprint Cup car carries the name of the driver inside.

But not on Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway when they run the Coca-Cola 600, the longest and most grueling race on the NASCAR circuit.

In a wonderful display of patriotism on Memorial Day weekend, NASCAR will be honoring fallen military personnel from across the country as part of its "An American Salute" program and will be replacing the drivers' names on the windshields with the names of servicemen killed in action.

That includes the pace car, which will be carrying the name and memory of an Arizona Marine who lost his life nine years ago during a roadside bombing in Iraq.

Lance Cpl. Brandon J. Webb, who attended Tempe McClintock High School and later graduated from Mesa Red Mountain, will be the name you see at the very front of Sunday's 43-car field.

When Webb's mother first heard the news, she immediately began searching the internet for flights to Charlotte.

"I was ready to book my tickets and go," Ann Marie Christofferson said, "but then I realized the race is on the same day I'm covering a shift for a co-worker. I couldn't find anyone to cover for me."

Christofferson works as a fire medic at the Toyota Proving Grounds and also performs the same duties on the safety team at Phoenix International Raceway.

"I wish I could be there," she said. "If it wasn't for the fact I'm covering for another guy I would definitely be there. We've got one TV at work and I'll have the race on for sure. I doubt anybody will complain."

Webb, who was just 20 when he died on June 20, 2006, loved auto racing and all types of sports, especially baseball. He was a pitcher and first baseman at McClintock during his freshman and sophomore years and had expressed an interest in coaching when he got out of the service.

"Brandon would call me from Iraq when he could and a couple days before he died, he told me wanted to come coach baseball with me as a volunteer when he got back," said Kerry Reeder, Webb's former coach at McClintock who now teaches at Williams Field High School in Gilbert and serves as an assistant softball coach at Chandler-Gilbert Community College.

"That was the last conversation I had with him. … He was a great kid."

Christofferson said her son was "incredible."

"He was probably every parent's dream child," she said. "He never caused any drama. He learned what not to do from his older brother. He was very, very intelligent and had the biggest heart."

Webb's spirit lives on in those who knew him and loved him and on Sunday, that same spirit will be leading the charge at the front of the Coca-Cola 600.

(Reach The Heat Index at bob.mcmanaman@arizonarepublic.com . Follow him on Twitter @azbobbymac and listen to him live every Monday at 5:30 p.m. on NBC Sports Radio with Roc and Manuch on AZ Sports Talk and every Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. on Fox Sports 910 on The Freaks with Kenny and Crash.)