Dan Wheldon Killed at Vegas Indycar Crash...

[url="http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/95473"]Wheldon dies from injuries - IndyCar news - AUTOSPORT.com[/url]

The crash:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVu7iTf59SQ"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVu7iTf59SQ[/ame]

Such a tragedy. He was one of the feel good story of the year as he got his ride at Indy 500 and won his 2nd 500. Entering into the finale as one of the "wild card" who can win the big 5 million to share with the fan. And now this....

Its good that this is the final race for this much maligned chassis, but it absolutely sucks that this has to be the parting shot of this questionable car....Much of the issue of the new rules were designed to deal with this exact kind of crash....with the mock fenders and everything....

I saw this man at the Honda Indy here in Toronto this summer. I stood right beside him basically.

Truly terrible news.

i think he was due to race on the gold coast this weekend too?

Yeah he was supposed to fly to Australia after this weekend for the Goldcoast race...

Very sad news indeed. Here he is hot off his second Indy 500 at this year's Festival of Speed:

Don't understand why his spotters didn't have him slowed down...he was quite behind the first cars that began the disaster.

Great tribute by our friend Marshall Pruett:

[url="http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/pruett-danny-boy/"]AUTO RACING - PRUETT: Danny Boy[/url]

[quote=Wouter Melissen;976233]Great tribute by our friend Marshall Pruett:

[url="http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/pruett-danny-boy/"]AUTO RACING - PRUETT: Danny Boy[/url][/quote]

That was amazingly touching....

[quote=Dino Scuderia;976228]Don't understand why his spotters didn't have him slowed down...he was quite behind the first cars that began the disaster.[/quote]

I was wondering the same, in the video posted you can hear the spotters yelling LOW LOW LOW right before they cut away from his on-board. Very, very shocking and sad :(

Might be an issue of slamming the brake might upset the car more. I think they all try to dodge first before getting on the anchor. He was riding the bottom of the banking at that point, also avoiding going onto the apron....

Very sad indeed. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

I still have yet to understand the mentality behind making F1 racers go around a big circle. Aren't these cars designed for extreme cornering? Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. Just thinkin' out loud here in the wake of this tragedy.

This particular venue had a recipe for such a pile up to happen. Steep banking allowing 200mph+ without much lifting/braking to separate the cars. 34 cars on a 1.5 mile smallish oval.

The Dallara is actually an oval car first and foremost. When it was conceived in its original guise IRL doesn't race on road courses. The chassis is more or less safe for that kind of racing. But they moved to this kind of tracks more and more, and with Indycar being more popular more cars are running competitively. So pack racing like this becomes the norm...

I haven't seen it on TV, just saw the new header at one of the motorsports sites when I switched my computer at work on on Monday. It read 'Dan Wheldon 1978-2011'. Then I've read the story and saw the news...

We all got used to the idea that motorsports is not as dangerous nowadays as it was known before and when I see cars flipping and burning I don't think about such possible outcome until something like this happens.

Keep up those who knew him.

And it was just a bit over a month after Christian Bakkerud was killed in a road accident...