Dan’s younger brother Austen is a first team scrum half at Tows, currently sidelined by an arm injury sustained last season.

Club chairman Paul Osborne said: “Our thoughts at this time are with Austen and his family. It is a terrible tragedy.

“I was in America not too long ago with Austen and we met up with Dan. He was an awesome bloke and an incredibly talented racing driver.”

Austen began playing at the club in the U15s and represented the Midlands at U16. Many of his friends have been posting messages of support on Facebook.

Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dan, 33 and a father of two, died in a racing accident in Las Vegas.

As a mark of respect, Tows will hold a minute’s silence before they kick off at home against Kettering this Saturday.

Tows travelled to Buzzard on Saturday to face a side looking for their first Midlands 1 East win of the season.

Playing down the slope in front of a vice-presidents crowd, it was the home side who created the early pressure.

Tows pack gradually got on top however leading to a yellow card for one of Buzzard’s locks.

Tows seized the advantage. First, No 8 Chris Kirby scored from a scrum five and captain Liam Wilkinson finished a powerful line out drive.

Full back Matt Yuill added one conversion and Tows raced to a 12-0 lead. Perhaps sensing an easy win, they then began to throw away the game.

Tows lock Peter Growler was sin binned for killing the ball and a loose penalty clearance kick bounced for Buzzard centre Bert Yirrell to score.

Turning round to come down the slope, Tows added a penalty through the boot of Yuill but spilled ball allowed the hosts’ quick backs to pounce again.

Buzzard’s razor sharp winger Dan Pearson fly hacked the loose ball, raced to regather possession and went on score.

At the restart, Pearson was straight back into the action when collected the catch, found himself in space and sprinted home to score.

With the scores leveled at 15-15, the hosts how had their tails up and their backs continued to play their fast and open running game.

Their enterprise was rewarded when full back Olly Taylor finished a flowing move which was converted to put the home side 22-15 ahead.

It fell to Tows centre Matt Bodily to reclaim the advantage. Like he’s done so many times before, he smashed through the opposition defence to score.

Bodily dotted down underneath the posts to make Yuill’s conversion a formality. Yuill then added two penalties to the relief of the travelling support.

Tows kick off against Kettering at 3pm at Greens Norton Road on Saturday.