Dan Wheldon, dies in Indy crash at age 33

[bddog]

talk about it later. Wow, died way too young

[imsotyerred]

Just saw this. Very sad :( He was one of the drivers I followed in the Indycar series. RIP.

^ lol rough dude.

don't blame me, blame internets

[samiam3356]

RIP indeed

Never understood open wheel oval racing.

[Rau]

I just don't see the point of overloading a track with insanely fast cars that NEED air to stay on the ground. It is designed for exactly what happened... crashes. Crashes mean ratings. If there is an increase of danger there will be an increase of viewers. You put that many cars on an inclined oval and it's only a matter of time before one looses air... looses traction... then boom. Huge accidents.

The organizers should be held accountable for their decisions.

I guess saying no place on ovals was a bit extreme but it just irritates me. We need more NON oval tracks in this country. I'd love to see all of the open wheeled Indy/cart series go to primarily non oval courses with the occasional oval. The fun of watching indycar for me is the turns, the speed, the passing.

With ovals I'm just not interested as much. I had actually flipped off the race over to the game when the accident happened. It's like the passing regulations they put in. On one hand they are trying to make it safer and in turn they make it boring. Then they do this. I knew before I even turned it on that there was gonna be at least one major accident. They're lucky 2 or 3 people didn't have MASSIVE life threatening injuries. There were 3/4 cars in that accident that could have had drivers killed.


Did Dan Wheldon have to die? - Motor News | FOX Sports on MSN

"The race was always going to be too fast, too packed together at three-wide, and too crowded with 34 cars. The drivers were complaining about it beforehand.

This race had been turned into a carnival to try to save a sport. Indy racing is losing Danica Patrick to NASCAR. And IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard had said that if ratings didn't go up from this championship race, didn't beat last year's minuscule TV ratings, then he would hand in his resignation.

So he offered up a $5 million winner's prize to any driver who wasn't an Indy racer. It was a challenge to prove the talent level of Indy drivers. Five non-Indy drivers could enter.

Imagine that: Cars would be going 225 mph, side by side, packed together, and an X-Games athlete, Travis Pastrana, who has NASCAR aspirations, was going to try. He hurt his leg beforehand.

That turned out to be the luckiest day of his life.

This isn't the "Price is Right," where you can just call someone down to participate.

They couldn't get NASCAR drivers to give it a shot, partly because they knew this race was a death trap. Even top Indy racers were worried about conditions and speeds they felt were just too dangerous.

"Within five laps, people started to do crazy stuff," driver Dario Franchitti told reporters just after the accident, before Wheldon was pronounced dead. "I wanted no part of it. I love hard racing, but that, to me, is not what it's about.

"I said before: This is not a suitable track. You can't get away from anybody. One small mistake, and you have a massive wreck."

Dan was prettymuch brain dead at the track, they kept his body alive at the hospital. The upcoming Indycar redesign would have literally been a lifesaver in a large wreck like this.

Will Power was the other car that got MAJOR airborne, he just managed to have an easier (as-if!) landing. His in car footage from the crash is nuts.

Seems like a bunch of compromises were made for this race, in order to make it look good for TV/advertisers, and someone paid the ultimate price.