Tracey Corbin

A tiny ghost bike is installed on a pole at the corner where Tracey was hit from behind. The driver was eventually charged with Vehicular Homicide.

from The Columbus Dispatch

Bicyclist headed to work killed on Alum Creek Dr. - Man wearing safety gear is hit from behind

Friday, 
August 22, 2008 3:15 AM

By Theodore Decker

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

He had lights on the bike, front and back -- reflectors, too.
And he always wore an orange safety vest to stand out in the
early-morning dark.

Tracey Corbin, 46, shared the road with the cars and the big rigs
that rumbled along Alum Creek Drive, so he took it slowly, his family
said. More than an hour before he had to punch in at his job at Shaklee
Corp. off Groveport Road, he'd leave the Fairwood Avenue home he shared
with his mother.

When he arrived, he always called to let her know he'd made it.

"That was a must," Yvonne Corbin said yesterday.

That's what jolted her awake before 6:30 a.m. No phone call.

Then his temp agency called. They knew how reliable Tracey was. Had
he left for work? Where was he?

The television news answered the questions. An accident. Alum Creek
Drive. A bicyclist killed.

"I knew it was him," Mrs. Corbin said.

Police said Tracey Corbin was headed south on Alum Creek Drive just
south of Watkins Road when he was struck from behind by a car also
headed south at 5:15 a.m.

The motorist, Michael R. Cline, 36, of 2506 Hoose Dr. near Grove
City, called police.

"When you come down through Alum Creek with all these trucks and all
the lights, I didn't see this guy," Cline said in the 911 call.

Police have not charged Cline. Detectives told Corbin's family that
they would thoroughly review the case.

"It does not appear to be any malicious intent," Stephen Corbin,
Tracey's younger brother, said he was told. "Right now, it just looks
like an accident."

Tracey Corbin grew up in Columbus, graduating from Eastmoor High
School in 1980.

His passion was NASCAR, his room a shrine to the Earnhardt family
racing dynasty. Even in grief, that made his younger brother
belly-laugh.

"To be an African-American, it was kind of strange to me," Stephen
Corbin said, cracking up. "You don't find too many brothers running
around watching NASCAR."

Tracey Corbin was unapologetic, apparent in his actions during one
Ohio State-Michigan football game.

"This man grabs my remote and flips to NASCAR,"
Stephen Corbin said, still incredulous and still laughing. "Everybody in
the room is looking at him.

"He didn't care," his brother said. "That was his thing."

Hard work was, too.

"Good, humble guy," said Greg Haynesworth II, senior staffing
coordinator at PROTEAM Staffing on E. Main Street. "Any job that we sent
him to, they would request him to return. He was that guy."

Corbin was cordial, dedicated, punctual and understanding if the
agency didn't have work for him.

"Very few people acted the way he did," Haynesworth said.

Whenever Yvonne Corbin worried about finances, her son would reassure
her that they'd make ends meet. After too many problems with their
car, they bought the bike together at a pawnshop. He pedaled to work
even in winter, complementing the vest with an orange hat and orange
gloves.

"He died proudly," said his sister, Trina Corbin. "He died going to
work."

Stephen Corbin said his brother liked the Earnhardts so much because
of the tradition, the strong family legacy they had built.

Thirty-two years ago, on Aug. 7, 1976, Tracey Corbin's father died in
a crash on I-70. It was storming that night, Yvonne Corbin remembered.
Joseph Corbin was coming home from work. He was 37.

So Tracey Corbin and his father are linked in death, his family said,
but also in life. Two family men, making ends meet.

tdecker@dispatch.com