Huge Indycar crash

CaptainRAVE said:
Thats what I heard to, makes it even worse :(
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Dan would win half and the other half would have gone to a fan who entered a draw. :(

Wouldn't be surprised if Franchitti retired after this as well. he's won his third straight Indycar title and after this i doubt the hunger will be there anymore. Very sad. :(
 
MissChief said:
Dan would win half and the other half would have gone to a fan who entered a draw. :(

Wouldn't be surprised if Franchitti retired after this as well. he's won his third straight Indycar title and after this i doubt the hunger will be there anymore. Very sad. :(
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I wouldn't be surprised if a few others are considering the same. I heard Danica was understandably very upset.

As a big F1 fan. I am glad safety has been such a big focus - it would be so sad to needlessly lose drivers like this.
 
koolpc said:
F1 used to be full of deaths. If it wasn't for Jackie Stewart things would have taken a long time to change for the better
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Sid watkins had a hand in it also. Read the book "life on the limit" great book, all about f1 days of the past.

If that was 15 F1 cars that were in that pile up then i wouldnt expect the outcome to be any different, as been mentioned, when cars start flying into concrete walls and catch fences than thats not good.
 
I am personally gutted at the loss of Daniel "Dan" Wheldon, Being a former club Karter in the same era as both Wheldon and Jenson Button, I can say 1st hand that even at the young age that they were, they were both destined for great things, They both shared a great rivalry during their Karting days and continued this into Formula ford.

I followed both their careers with great passion and it was only yesterday whilst at Brands Hatch for the formula ford festival, That I realised the last time I was there, was for the 1998 formula ford festival and ironically, both Jenson and Daniel were fighting for victory in the final, with Jenson winning and Daniel finishing second, So to wake up this morning to hear the news that He had died made me feel pretty mortified.

I never thought for a minute, whilst watching him as a 10yr old boy at buckmore park, That one day he would lose his life in such tragic circumstances, I rather envisaged that we would be talking about him as a F1 champ, He was truly talented and a talent that was never really appreciated on our shores, though stateside he was truly regarded as one of the worlds finest drivers and rightly so.

My thoughts and prayers go to his wife and two children and the rest of the Wheldons.

R.I.P Daniel "Dan" Wheldon
 
CaptainRAVE said:
I wouldn't be surprised if a few others are considering the same. I heard Danica was understandably very upset.

As a big F1 fan. I am glad safety has been such a big focus - it would be so sad to needlessly lose drivers like this.
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Danica's going to Nascar anyway. I suspect they'll do something to lower the speeds. Smaller tyres, lower engine power/rev limit or greater drag on ovals.
 
CaptainRAVE said:
I wouldn't be surprised if a few others are considering the same. I heard Danica was understandably very upset.
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Hopefully she will retire. That will be one small positive in this tragedy.

Listened to both Jody Sheckter and Mansell on the radio and both agreed at 225mph this was always going to happen and keep happening with so many cars on the track. Jody wants his own son to retire.
 
RIP
This is racing. These things happen. If there was no chance for this to happen, motorsport wouldn't be the same. It is impressive how safe motorsport and the cars are these days. Sometimes the odds are just not stacked in your favour. This was a sad day. But I for one would not like to see any rash changes based on one death. No chassis design changes would ever save you in a crash like that. It's just how it is. Poor guy.
 
Danicas off to NASCAR in 2012 as said above so doubt she'll retire from that.

Dario on the other hand, 4 time champion what does he have to prove now in Indycars at 38 years old having seen one of his mates killed?

From a technical perspective looking back on it I'm not sure anything would have saved Wheldons life it was such a bad accident the forces involved would have been huge.

The question of whether 34 cars should have even been racing on a track like this where they could go flat out for the entire lap meaning you had people of varying abilities and experience all mixed up in the grid feet apart is probably more where Indycar should be looking at in the future.
 
jaybee said:
RIP
This is racing. These things happen. If there was no chance for this to happen, motorsport wouldn't be the same. It is impressive how safe motorsport and the cars are these days. Sometimes the odds are just not stacked in your favour. This was a sad day. But I for one would not like to see any rash changes based on one death. No chassis design changes would ever save you in a crash like that. It's just how it is. Poor guy.
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I understand your point, To a degree, Motorsport has always been about the fine line between chasing the Glory, whilst tip-toeing on the edge of disaster, It is what separates racing drivers from us, Yet when Senna died, the whole world of motorsport looked upon F1 to change it`s stance on safety and it duly complied, Making it the safest era of F1 and yes we will at some point see another fatality in F1, It is in its nature to do so.

On the other side of the pond, we see a stark contrast of change, one where the spectacle is put before the safety of drivers, Here you have 30 odd drivers competing on a banked oval, which is 1.5 miles round and the cars are nearing Indy 500 speeds, It is no coincidence that Indycar is struggling to maintain it`s former glory, Thus putting money first and safety 2nd.

You are right, the crash was unavoidable, though it should and could have been avoidable.

Daniel Wheldon knew the risks but if you take out certain factors that led to the crash then the odds would have been less. Another point not understood is the level of talent in the field, you have a mixture of drivers who are skilled enough to race hard and keep it clean and others who are not skilled enough, I mean some of these drivers were rookies, some of them had only junior level of competiton experience. I would suggest that some of them run out of talent and left Dan Wheldon no option.
 
teejay73 said:
I understand your point, To a degree, Motorsport has always been about the fine line between chasing the Glory, whilst tip-toeing on the edge of disaster, It is what separates racing drivers from us, Yet when Senna died, the whole world of motorsport looked upon F1 to change it`s stance on safety and it duly complied, Making it the safest era of F1 and yes we will at some point see another fatality in F1, It is in its nature to do so.

On the other side of the pond, we see a stark contrast of change, one where the spectacle is put before the safety of drivers, Here you have 30 odd drivers competing on a banked oval, which is 1.5 miles round and the cars are nearing Indy 500 speeds, It is no coincidence that Indycar is struggling to maintain it`s former glory, Thus putting money first and safety 2nd.

You are right, the crash was unavoidable, though it should and could have been avoidable.

Daniel Wheldon knew the risks but if you take out certain factors that led to the crash then the odds would have been less. Another point not understood is the level of talent in the field, you have a mixture of drivers who are skilled enough to race hard and keep it clean and others who are not skilled enough, I mean some of these drivers were rookies, some of them had only junior level of competiton experience. I would suggest that some of them run out of talent and left Dan Wheldon no option.
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I welcome your response and valid discussion without this turning into a disrespectful argumentative thread.
In response one thing I would like to point out is that I think some people are over analysing the mixture of talent thing. If you actually look at how the entire crash was caused, it was such a simple coming together that could have happened to literally any racer. I'm not sure the name of the driver, but it was the one in the orange/red car. The front left wing of that car touched with the rear right wheel of the car in front, or if it didn't, it came very close and right after this moment either due to the contact or due to dodging the wheel, the orange/red car swerved right and then overcorrected left, and then twitched back to the right and then finally left with the back sliding out. The whole thing occured due to one twitch. This happens week in week out during indy races. Majority of the time, mainly due to luck and the nature of the crashes, people survive. This is just a bad, unlucky crash where a car managed to climb into the fencing at near top speed decelerating massively quickly. It was unsurviveable.
 
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