Indy driver Dan Wheldon died today in a crash involving 15 cars at the Las Vegas Indy 300. I’m not a big Indy fan (more NASCAR) but no matter what series you watch you don’t want to see any driver get hurt or killed.
Oh. Crap.
He was by far the biggest name in IRL. Heck, he was the Roger Federer of IRL. When he was on, he was unstoppable, and you could never count him out. And now he’s gone.
A sobering reminder that for all the advances in technology and safety and all the times we see a driver suffer a horrific wipeout and then get out, brush himself off, and walk away like it’s a minor annoyance, this sport will never be completely safe. Bad things will happen to people, up to and including death.
And Danica Patrick leaves for good next year. How the hell this league will survive, I don’t know.
Dario Franchitti and Helio Castroneves are pretty big names as well, but yeah, those stands were pretty empty even before the red flag. The sport just isn’t sustainable when all the racing fans (and therefore sponsors) only care about NASCAR.
Besides the tragedy of his death, this is particularly difficult as Wheldon was really on the comeback trail this year. After losing his full-tim drive, he won the Indy 500 as a part time driver, something that hasn’t happened since I don’t know when. He was in a position to sign with one of the top teams for next year.
That’s a bit of an overstatement, but he was definitely an outstanding driver. It’s always a tragedy when these things happen, but if we can take some consolation from this, at least he died doing something he loved. The tributes at Indy next year will be legion as he won the race twice, including this year’s 500.
Wow. Huge loss.
It seems the car flipped over another and was launched up in the air towards the wall, it collided with the wall cockpit first, he didn’t had a chance… 
Warning, different views of the crash:
A horrible tragedy.
As far as the series itself, it’ll go on, or if it fails, it won’t be because of this. And don’t put Danica out in front, either. She finished 10th at Kentucky, and I read that race only scored a .1 rating in the States. So she’s hardly the series savior, and personally, I’m happy to see her go.
Racing is risky, and as Eddie Cheever and Scott Goodyear said on the broadcast today, the drivers choose to drive racecars. That in no way diminishes what happened–a young man lost his life today, and that’s a huge loss. But the sport of auto racing will go on.
Meh. The fans got to see what they all secretly crave - a big spectacular crash. Even the sports commentators sounded giddy with delight in the first few seconds of the crash. I was watching it on the USA Today website and the commentator actually says “Whee, here we GO!” in an excited tone when it first starts happening.
Then as the smoke clears, the talking heads starting yapping away about how dangerous the sport is, how fast they go, etc etc. :rolleyes:
Sorry a young man died for the entertainment of stupid rednecks.
No doubt there’s a certain percentage of spectators who want to watch wrecks, but take the result (ie, Wheldon’s death) out of the situation today, and what did you have? Twelve laps of racing followed by an hour and a half of nothing, until Randy Bernard said the race was over. That’s not much entertainment.
From your post, it sounds like you know little to nothing about racing. Open wheel racing isn’t filled with rednecks as a rule; instead it’s filled with drivers who race each other at speeds of up to 230 mph inches away from each other, and from concrete walls. Even Danica, who I’m not a fan of, has more guts than I do, and while I don’t respect her as a racer, I do respect her as a driver.
This isn’t the Pit, so I’ll keep any other comments about your post to myself.
When you see a car fly through the air, land on its roof and then the driver gets out and waves to the crowd as he walks away, yea, you kind of look forward to the “Big One.” A lot of racing fans (at least when it comes to NASCAR) weren’t yet fans when Dale Sr died so they’ve never seen a death at the track. The networks (especially Fox) pump up some races by asking “When will the Big One happen?” The crowd base has been desensitized to potential injuries.
After watching this today I won’t look for the Big One, and if it’s happens I certainly won’t celebrate it. Today’s incident really hit home how dangerous racing can be.
And FYI, not all racing fans are rednecks. You can put that broad brush away now.
I’m not a huge racing expert but isn’t track racing with open wheel cars inviting disaster? You have these super light cars travelling at unbelievable speeds with your down force on a razors edge. On a street course you might get two or three people tangled on an accident but that will usually happen in a corner at a (slightly) slower speed but at a track where they can travel full bore all day you get massive packs of cars travelling together. Seems much more dangerous with open wheel cars than NASCARS (bad stuff can still happen but they’re much heavier, no?).
Like I said, I’m not expert but that’s what struck me today watching the race.
It’s hardly been a secret. Deaths and disability run rampant throughout the entire history of auto racing. It’s inherently dangerous.
As popular as Danica was, I don’t know if she really moved the needle for IndyCar racing. It seemed to be more of “she is popular” type of thing. Although IndyCar is still
losing money, the losses are apparently lower thanks to CEO Randy Bernard
Survival may be tough but open wheel drivers are more interested in the race and cars than the drivers (NASCAR is different in that). Plus IndyCar races where NASCAR mostly does: many road courses and street races. And the Indianapolis 500 is still pretty popular.
But all this fades to insignificant with the death of one of its more talented drivers (although Wheldon had become more of an oval track specialist than a road/street racer, perhaps due to his training in the weaker power IRL cars instead of the higher HP cars of CART that Franchitti and Power learned on)
I don’t watch Indy cars, but I know the name. Sucks.
I know what I heard. And that was giddy, childish excitement in the sportscaster’s voice as the accident began. That is all.
Accidents happen, they affect races, and the sportcaster’s excitement quickly faded.
Ever watched football, or hockey, and listened to a sportcaster’s excitement at a play quickly fade as it becomes clear that a tragedy has occured?
I bet it was similar to the giddy, childish excitement that you undoubtedly experienced when you were furiously typing out your self-righteous screed proclaiming all racing fans to be brain addled hicks hoping to get the chance to watch people die on their teevee sets…
(I say that as someone who wouldn’t sit and watch a live OR televised car race for $100 bucks in cash, as it holds absolutely no interest to me whatsoever)
THAT is all…
An exciting play in football is exciting because it means one team or another might have actually accomplished something. Getting giddy over a car accident happening right in front of you is the same how? 
Because it makes a difference in the event. I’m going to assume that you know nothing about motor sports.
It is more dangerous for the drivers certainly, but I’ve been saying for years that eventually a car is going to end up going into the stands sooner or later-either a NASCAR vehicle will plow through the fence (as has almost happened several times), or an open-wheeler will go over. Remember both of these vehicles carry tons of momentum down the track-an Indy car is light enough that launching it that high isn’t impossible. This is just a straight application of Murphy’s Law.
Damned shame about Wheldon. F***.