They are generally very safe, it's just these super high speed ovals that can get you into trouble, especially when you get up into the fencing.

 

Has anybody read any details? Did the cage break or was it more the exposed helmet of Indy cars and F1. Not wanting to be gory or disrespectful, just curious because so often the cage protects against unbelievable crashes.

 

The tub was intact. He died of blunt force trauma to the head. Most likely he hit the fence post with his helmet as his car went in top first.

 

Seems as if the car wound up putting the centerline right on the wall. There is no protection whatsoever from a top side 'landing', if you will, on these cars. Not like that.

Reminds me of Greg Moore's crash in Fontana.

So sad. Still unbelievable.

 

I can barely watch the bits and pieces of the wreck footage. It's over the top, not a pun, and crazy like a Michael Bay film. But real. Maybe in a few weeks I can but this is tough.

My heart goes out to the family.

Andretti was shortly interviewed this morning. Just for another perspective, on the Today show.

 

Seen a US Today headline asking if racing become to dangerous as a result of Wheldon's death.

As tragic as Wheldon's death is it beats the hell out racing in from probably the 80's on down. IIRC, when Jackie Stewart started his safety campaign in the 60's, a driver who raced more than 3 or 4 seasons was a dead man walking.

 

Racing is *always* dangerous. Always. Speed, close quarters, hemmed in, unknowable combinations of impact angles, etc, ad nauseum.

The headline is there to sell to uninformed, easily alarmed people who don't think.

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Having said that, I believe that racing at 220MPH on a short oval in an open cockpit, open wheel, carbon fiber machine in 3 and 4 wide with 20 cars all around?

Hell yeah, THAT's too dangerous. And the IndyCar drivers were saying so before the race.

There was a similar incidence of 'heebie jeebies' at Texas one year... the drivers were *blacking out* going around the track... and then refused to drive it. They cancelled the race. Rightly so.

There is only one way that IndyCar can survive this to come back to this track: Make them run with lesser powered engines (BUT NOT RESTRICTOR PLATES) and quit trying to make these cars invisible to air.

It won't happen. Part of Indy is speed. And therefore, part of Indy is going to be the occasional tragic death.



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This refers to Las Vegas. Phoenix, you don't get this. Indy, you don't get this. The banking, and the large sweeping turns, at Vegas helps the danger. Indy, with it's 'square' turns, causes drivers to slow way down in comparison to the speeds in the straights and chutes, and the lower banking helps them too. There's no room for 3-4 wide on that track, and they tend to not bunch up as much except at restarts, they tend to string out very quickly.

Phoenix, while nearly a circle, is also mainly flat. That keeps speeds down.

Of course, this here be a layman making a few theories, but I bet I'm pretty close...

Oh, and I also think that grass on the tracks is stupid, and dangerous. Pave all grass areas, or better yet, gravel them, and then paint them green. Grass is what caused Greg Moore's header into the retaining wall, it flipped the car when it dug into the ground. Can't do that on pavement/gravel.