[PhillyNate]

This was really sad today. You could tell he was gone by everybody's expressions way before the announcement. Especially Tony Kanaan. RIP Dan Wheldon.

[dcgolfdr]

Originally Posted by Gregxi

Sad, you get used to seeing such horrific wrecks and almost always the guy survives.

I feel for his family, a two and half year old and a 7 month old, two little boys who will never see their daddy again.

+1, that is what is most upsetting

[signes]

RIP, Dan. Thoughts and prayers to his family, I cannot imagine their grief. Thankfully this is a very rare occurrence in modern racing, all the more shocking when it happens.

[mr_graphite]

I was at the Indy Race today. Brutal to watch, devastating to see the results.... What the other drivers did to honor of him was very moving and emotional..... R.I.P. Dan Wheldon.

[CDM3DCT]

RIP Dan

[E90SLAM]

RIP...

[M3WC]

I saw something like this coming years ago when Kenny Brack almost lost his life. These cars are a death trap on these high speed 1.5 mile ovals.

Sad day, Dan was good person.

[xerox445]

I heard on tv that in practice the cars were hitting over 225 MPH. Thats crazy fast in anything let alone a carbon fiber open wheel car. I wonder if they are going to add more saftey regulations because of this.

[JustMpwrd]

RIP Dan Wheldon.

[BrokenVert]

Hey guys, one of the guys that I work at the Gremlins with is being hit kinda hard by this.

can you guys just drop a comment on his sendoff article for him?

http://gahdengremlins.com/post/11564...of-dan-wheldon

[tp550i]

Tragic indeed, thoughts and prayer to his young family.

how sad last race of the year and he was going to re-unite with Andretti team replacing Danica Patrick after the race

[ricanbandit]

Horrible, simply horrible. R.I.P. Dan

[jkoral]

Originally Posted by BrokenVert

This really doesnt happen anymore.

As I'm sitting here in the dealership with some news channel on (not watching but forced to listen), they had some talking head on and he talked about the big safety push F1 made after their last fatality "in 1993". FAIL.

This idiot is on again (CNN, his first name is Don and he has a British accent). He said the "F1 drivers got together after the last fatality in 1993 and pushed for safety", which is totally incorrect.

[M3WC]

Originally Posted by jkoral

As I'm sitting here in the dealership with some news channel on (not watching but forced to listen), they had some talking head on and he talked about the big safety push F1 made after their last fatality "in 1993". FAIL.

This idiot is on again (CNN, his first name is Don and he has a British accent). He said the "F1 drivers got together after the last fatality in 1993 and pushed for safety", which is totally incorrect.

In my opinion you can't compare the sports. The problem is the speed they are driving on these 1.5 mile ovals in such tight packs. It is too easy to touch wheels and create a nascar style pile-up (like yesterday). When these cars get lauched into the catch fence, is when racers start losing their lives.

There has been 4 deaths in Indycar since 1996.

It should be street and road courses, with the Indy 500 being the only high speed oval track exception. (Ovals like the Milwaukee Mile are possibilities)

[Blake]

Originally Posted by JetBlack5OC

I saw something like this coming years ago when Kenny Brack almost lost his life. These cars are a death trap on these high speed 1.5 mile ovals.

Originally Posted by JetBlack5OC

In my opinion you can't compare the sports. The problem is the speed they are driving on these 1.5 mile ovals in such tight packs. It is too easy to touch wheels and create a nascar style pile-up (like yesterday). When these cars get lauched into the catch fence, is when racers start losing their lives.

There has been 4 deaths in Indycar since 1996.

It should be street and road courses, with the Indy 500 being the only high speed oval track exception. (Ovals like the Milwaukee Mile are possibilities)

when i first heard of his passing, this is the very first thing i thought of. open wheel cars on banked oval tracks designed for heavy stock cars. these tracks are no place for open wheeled race cars. there are very few tracks on the f1 circuit that would have yielded a result like that, but then again, f1 cars have to slow to make turns. these indy cars run at full bore pretty much the entire race. with no runoff area, they will sail like wings into these high banked walls if they get off the ground just a bit. that's why wrecks in indy are more spectacular. unfortunately, there aren't many true large road courses here that also can accommodate major spectator events.

at any rate, sad news for racing fans in general. another one of the greats of his sport died doing what he loved to do, but i see it totally preventable if the right facilities were there.

[BTM]

Dave Despain has talked about it before - that banked bowl style tracks like Vegas are likely on their way out in open wheeled racing, for those exact reason. There are plenty of ovals with less banking and squared corners that actually require braking for turns. I believe they were running 230ish at Vegas...when they started to hit those speeds at Indy 10-15 years ago they started introducing regulations to slow the cars down.

[igom3]

Its so sad. RIP Dan

[Blake]

http://espn.go.com/racing/indycar/st...t-racing-ovals

CONCORD, N.C. -- One day after the death of reigning Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon in a fiery crash in Las Vegas, five-time defending NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson said it's time for IndyCar to stop racing on ovals.

[BTM]

That's pretty reactionary. It's not simply ovals - it's the type of ovals, specifically ones that such elevated speeds are sustainable at. You'll never be able to legislate danger completely from racing. While there are steps to be made in the right direction, eradicating ovals from the sport is an extreme opinion to have, and it surprises me that someone with such extensive knowledge of oval racing would generalize to that extent.

[Blake]

Originally Posted by BTM

That's pretty reactionary. It's not simply ovals - it's the type of ovals, specifically ones that such elevated speeds are sustainable at. You'll never be able to legislate danger completely from racing. While there are steps to be made in the right direction, eradicating ovals from the sport is an extreme opinion to have, and it surprises me that someone with such extensive knowledge of oval racing would generalize to that extent.

well why not eliminate ovals from the indy schedule? those are road cars. they should be racing on proper circuits. not only would it be safer for the drivers, but it would probably attract a lot more viewership from people that aren't interested in watching cars go in circles.

[BTM]

Open wheeled cars have been racing on ovals since the sports inception. The sports' arguable raison d'etre is the Indy 500. IMS has proven to be a relatively safe track, with banking at about 9* and 2.5mi as opposed to Vegas which is 20* and only 1.5mi in length. Ovals have always been a part of Indycar and I don't think this will nor should change that. Before the merge with CART, Indycar was nearly all oval racing. It would be an over-reaction IMO, to abandon all ovals when they really aren't the problem. It's the very high sustained speeds at short tracks with high banking that introduce the elevated risk to open wheeled cars.

[BTM]

Also interesting to consider is the design / aero package. Mario Andretti said about this Dallara something to the effect of:

"in low downforce configuration(1mi+ ovals), that there was a negative pressure applied to the nose, so in actuality, the car is always trying to take off. So when it gets that one little chance and the nose starts to lift slightly, it's all the invitation it needs to get sent into the air like a leaf"