(CNN) -- Dan Wheldon brought a bit of England with him when he began driving extremely fast cars in the United States. 

"When I first started racing, a lot of the guys said that I raced with a lot of heart, occasionally not my head, but always with a lot of heart, like the way that Richard the Lionheart fought in battle," Wheldon wrote on a sponsor's blog in 2010. 

Wheldon placed a small mural of the 12th-century warrior king on his helmet in 1995, before he competed in America and eventually released "Lionheart," a biographical photo book. 

Wheldon's fellow IndyCar drivers remembered the heart, competitiveness and growing maturity of the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner, who died in a horrific multi-car wreck at a Las Vegas event on Sunday at age 33. 

"Dan came over years ago as a young, brash kid from England," former IndyCar driver Lyn St. James said Monday, "and we watched him mature into being this absolute, consummate professional ... He touched so many people." 

A shaken Dario Franchitti, speaking after the canceled Las Vegas Indy 300, said "one minute you're joking around ... the next, Dan's gone." 

"We can put so much pressure on ourselves to win races and championships and it's what we love to do," said Franchitti, who knew Wheldon since he was a child. "And it's what we live for. And then on days like today, it doesn't really matter. I lost, we lost ... a good friend." 

Franchitti recalled Wheldon's early IndyCar years. 
Who was he referred to as?
Richard the Lionheart