Twenty years ago this week, tragedy befell the racing world when Ricky Hendrick, a former star driver and heir executive for NASCAR's Hendrick Motorsports, was killed along with nine others associated with the racing team while traveling to the Martinsville race track in Virginia.

That life-changing moment was remembered this week in a touching tribute from the late Hendrick's fiancé, Emily Maynard Johnson, who would go on from that heartbreaking loss to become a reality TV star on "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette," according to People magazine.

The young racing star's death was also poignantly memorialized by his father, Rick Hendrick, and others at the top NASCAR organization he would likely be in charge of by now if he were still alive today.

Grieving a lost love

In an Instagram post on Thursday, Emily Maynard Johnson shared an old black-and-white photo of her and Hendrick and wrote, "20 years. How did this even happen? It’s so strange to have a specific marker in time that completely changed my life and soul forever."

"I look at pictures and don’t even recognize that girl anymore, no matter how much I wish I could," she continued. "In one hand I feel like I’ve changed so much and then in the other, that I’ve been paralyzed at age 18 forever."

"I have so many things I can’t wait to tell him. I can’t wait for him to meet my Tyler. I know they’ll love each other and that Ricky is so grateful for how well he has taken care of his girls," Johnson added of her current husband and her daughter with Hendrick. "Thank you, God, for letting me be a part of his life and for allowing me the gift of being loved by him."

People noted that Johnson's mother, Susie, commented on her daughter's heartfelt post and wrote, "He was her first love, and she was his last, a beautiful love story that lives thru their daughter and all who got to be part of their lives. My heart is with you both on this day of remembrance and tribute to a beautiful soul taken too soon."

Johnson and Hendrick's daughter, Ricki, also shared her mother's post on her own social media account and added of her late father, whom she never met, "The man, the myth, the legend. Everyone misses you, Dad."

Johnson's life after the tragedy

According to Us Weekly, Johnson, 38, was 18 when she got engaged to Hendrick, 24, and discovered shortly after his tragic death on October 23, 2004, that she was pregnant with their daughter, Josephine "Ricki" Riddick, who is now 19.

Johnson would go on to earn both fame and notoriety as a winning competitor on Season 15 of "The Bachelor," as she got engaged to but later split from the show's star Brad Womack in 2011. The next year she was the star of Season 8 of "The Bachelorette" and got engaged to winning competitor Jef Holm, but then later split from him as well in 2012.

She eventually married Tyler Johnson in 2014, who coincidentally shares the same birthday as Hendrick, and has had five more children with him -- sons Jennings, 9, Gibson, 8, Gaitlin, 6, and Jones, 2, and daughter Magnolia Belle, 4.

Team mourns the tragic loss with a 20-year memorial service

Meanwhile, at the Hendrick Motorsports facility in North Carolina, a tribute service was held Thursday at a memorial fountain to honor the lives and mourn the loss of those who perished in the tragic plane crash 20 years earlier that nearly ended the team and devastated team owner Rick Hendrick and his wife Linda.

In addition to Ricky, others who died on that plane included Rick's brother and team President John Hendrick; John's daughters, Jennifer and Kimberly; the team's general manager Jeff Turner and chief engine builder Randy Dorton; sponsor DuPont executive Joe Jackson; the plane's pilots Richard Tracy and Elizabeth Morrison; and former driver Tony Stewart's helicopter pilot Scott Lathram.

"I want to thank all of the families and all of our extended families (employees) for loving these people and supporting these folks and remembering what a treasure each one was," Rick Hendrick said during the ceremony. "Never to be replaced and never to be forgotten but to always be loved and remembered. I just appreciate the warmth and love that's around this fountain today. We will never, ever forget these souls."