$5 Million IndyCar Challenge at Las Vegas

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by csirl

There has been some talk of failure of the roll bar - could this be attributed to an old car (all the currnet cars are close to end of life) whcih has previously been in a heavy shunt?

I'm not sure whether the failure of the roll bar had anything to do with a previous shunt, I'm sure the answer to that one will emerge when the dust settles on this. I would imagine though that the rollbar wasn't designed to withstand a high speed front loaded impact [when it was ripped by the catch fencing] but rather a low speed vertical one [e.g. when the car pitches upside down]. I could be wrong of course.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by AndyS

I'm sorry but true or not I find this slightly distasteful under the circumstances. Please remember there are a family in deep shock and mourning as we speak. Not to mention those poor boys who will never know their Father.

I understand exactly where Mountainstar is coming from on this and I don't belive the intention is to be distasteful but to point out how next year's Indy 500 will put on some distasteful, mawkish display in memory of Dan Wheldon.

[AndyS]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

I understand exactly where Mountainstar is coming from on this and I don't belive the intention is to be distasteful but to point out how next year's Indy 500 will put on some distasteful, mawkish display in memory of Dan Wheldon.

Fair enough and I do understand his point but so soon after the event when feelings are very raw is maybe not the time to be raising it.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by AndyS

Fair enough and I do understand his point but so soon after the event when feelings are very raw is maybe not the time to be raising it.

I know what you mean.

[ujoint]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

Agreed.
The Dallara underbottom is virtually a flat plane from one side to the other. When you lift at 190+ mph you are going faster than a jumbo jet at its rotation point. Of course you are going to fly.

If you hit the car in front on an angle as Dan did (the right front wheel folded up) then it will create a rotation of the chassis in the air. Dan's car went into the wall/fence on its right hand side, the cockpit area up against the wall.
Almost everyone else hit the wall side on, right side up, or tail-3/4 on, right side up.

Venturis would help stability but they are not the only factor here. There is 1 30 year history of aerodynamic stability and development knowledge that can resolve these issues with some thought and some work.

What shouldn't be allowed to happen is ignore it and business as usual. that would be a waste of life.
In the light of this trgedy we simply have to find find a better way, build a better mousetrap, so if it happens again there is a way out.

What if (engineers) some portion of that flat bottom could instantly be opened to dump the air. Something along the lines of a louvered vane. Either automatically or driver controlled.

[Jimmy Magnusson]

Originally Posted by mountainstar

I always find it funny when people label things they do not participate in or have a stake in, call things an "acceptable risk". Driving unsafe cars with an unsafe safety team and an unsafe team in race control with unsafe drivers who can hardly manage a rental car to the track much less an irl car at 225 mph is not an "acceptable risk". I bet Dan Wheldon would rather give up his 2 indy 500 titles to be at home with his family tonight.

Regardless of being in a race or not there have been irl fatalities.

Not to mention flukes like Ryan Briscoe at Chicagoland or Kenny Brack at Texas. Couple of inches either way and it would have been curtains.

The cars are not safer, the irl vehicles with their flat bottoms, nose high ass down configuration and barn door wings, longitudinal gearboxes, are worse. Give me a new build Lola Champcar any day over those dogs.

I think what some people are not getting is yes there is risk and physics and there is also carelessness and lack of attention to detail and safety and the irl is the latter.

A.J. Allmendinger put it well:

"There's always going to be risks. But right now, the risks are greater than they need to be."

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by ujoint

What if (engineers) some portion of that flat bottom could instantly be opened to dump the air. Something along the lines of a louvered vane. Either automatically or driver controlled.

I doubt if a driver would necessarily be able to react in time to operate such a device, however the 2012 car has ground effect.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by skells22

i got the answer to how he died, head injury.

i think we all knew that the moment of impact.

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by Mal

The problem with this type of racing as it is now is that sooner or later something will happen that will cause one or part of these cars to clear the fencing and end up in a grandstand.

It was lucky at Vegas that there was no stand full of people at that point as I am sure debris and burning fuel must have flown out of the racetrack.

It has happened a few times already. Three were killed at Charlotte in '09.

[gttouring]

I understand the risks and complaints but this is Indy and racing suffers a loss many times over it is a hard sad part of it. I hope death or unconsciousness was immediate and he had no time to regret anything because any of us who have raced know that when you are in the cockpit everything is well in the world it is the single best place to be. I have a daughter now and would hate to leave her or my wife behind ever, but when I am on track I personally am filled with their joy love and beauty 10x's over and seeing them at home each time gets better. I am sure Dan was of similar mind.
When butt heads like jimmie johnson says IndyCar has no right to be racing ovals, he is doing NASCAR lip service, and not respecting anything. INDY is racing and everything is an offshoot of it in the USA, the dallara is largely to blame than the track or the series.
Dan was an ace driver the car how ever weird an accident failed him. Just like thee seatbelts and pre-hans device set up killed dale earnhardt and no one said NASCAR. Needs to stay off the high banks or racing needs to stop at daytona.
Let us learn heal and be safer from this and all be racers like Dan.

[anthonyvop]

Originally Posted by gttouring

When butt heads like jimmie johnson says IndyCar has no right to be racing ovals, he is doing NASCAR lip service, and not respecting anything. INDY is racing and everything is an offshoot of it in the USA,

Frankly unless the ICS address it's serious safety issues on Oval tracks I have to agree with him. History is all well and good but I would gladly give it all up if it would bring Dan Back.
Jimmie Johnson is one of the most respected voices in all of motorsports and I have never known him to say anything without careful consideration.
Many in F1 thoughts are along what he believe.
Death of racer Dan Wheldon in IndyCar makes waves in Formula 1 world

[Bob Riebe]

I have to give the woman who was covering this for CNN last night credit for taking the male newsroom's talking head alarmist ignorance and stuffing it in a bottle.
She reported in a manner of fact "this is racing" style, no matter how hard he tried to make it look like the Hindenburg.

The general "Press" should not be allowed to even report on racing incidents as their bias against and ignorance of racing is usually quite obvious.

[gttouring]

of course people die in stock car races a lot, and almost as frequently and in high profile at lower speeds than Indy cars.
i don't think it was so careful a consideration I think it was a knee jerk remark.
do we need to list the 'safer' stock car driver who have died versus open wheelers to see each series has its same share of death and by sheer violence of accident and risk of speed- Indycars and open wheel fare better it seems no matter where the accident is.
I was put off by JJ's comment, although I do find him to be an exceptional racer, but a voice for telling an entire series what to do , is not his place (besides 12 drivers have died at the Daytona International Speedway, more than any other circuit.) an -open wheel guy like Tony Stewart would know better on what to suggest i feel-
Las Vegas however, was crowed on before the race every driver said it was going to be a mad, they were right-
was it too many cars on track? too many rookies in such a crazy place?
it can simply be improved, like Fontana and MIS, after Greg Moore's passing.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by anthonyvop

Frankly unless the ICS address it's serious safety issues on Oval tracks I have to agree with him. History is all well and good but I would gladly give it all up if it would bring Dan Back.
Jimmie Johnson is one of the most respected voices in all of motorsports and I have never known him to say anything without careful consideration.
Many in F1 thoughts are along what he believe.
Death of racer Dan Wheldon in IndyCar makes waves in Formula 1 world

I had already read that reference in F1 before you posted it. In most cases its drivers making comments about a sport they have limited knowledge about or are looking at from a limited or snapshot view.
DC's comment about Piquets crash shows that he in fact knows little about Indycar safety or what has happened in Indycar since the mid nineties and most of the others other than Mansell and Scheckter would have less knowledge about Indycar than the people on this forum.

Bob Reibe is right in his comment.

[nickyf1]

Pretty good article by Robin Miller on the matter:
http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...r-oval-madness

[fieldodreams79]

Indy type car racing on speedways has been and still is one of the, if not, the most dangerous form of motor racing; that is not in question. What's in question is that there was plenty of hesitation about this type of racing on mile and a half high banked ovals for years, but nothing REALLY bad happened as a direct result of this form of racing.

^Two things that immediately jump out at me from Robin's article is that two people who know more about this than anyone here had this to say:

Adrian Fernandez:

"I have never seen drivers so on edge as they were this morning," said Fernandez, who won oval races in CART and IRL during his 12-year career. "And I mean all of them I talked to were really concerned about the speeds and running three abreast."

Robin Miller:

But as tragic and shocking as it was to lose to the two-time Indy 500 winner, it really didn’t surprise a lot of us who have cringed for the past 15 years watching the madness of pack racing an Indy car at over 210 mph.

^ and to me, the racing was not even that good - put me to sleep just about every time.

They walked this silly line for years, and after numerous close calls, the inevitable finally happened Sunday.

[Paradise City]

Originally Posted by gttouring

When butt heads like jimmie johnson says IndyCar has no right to be racing ovals, he is doing NASCAR lip service, and not respecting anything. INDY is racing and everything is an offshoot of it in the USA, the dallara is largely to blame than the track or the series.
Dan was an ace driver the car how ever weird an accident failed him. Just like thee seatbelts and pre-hans device set up killed dale earnhardt and no one said NASCAR. Needs to stay off the high banks or racing needs to stop at daytona.
Let us learn heal and be safer from this and all be racers like Dan.

I'm in broad agreement. I don't think Johnson is being insincere, I like him, but Indycar's enemies within motorracing are coming out with interference rather than analysis and the media are lapping it all up. The internet is also highly developed [youtube, twitter.etc] today compared with '99/'01 with those high profile tragedies so there's a groundswell of interference coming from online columnists and pundits as well.

[gttouring]

yes Bob you seem to have it there.
just read the Miller article. While he is right that Randy inherited what Indy is, running wheel to wheel at 220mph on an oval is not an issue necessarily.
remember Montoya and Andretti swapping places wheel to wheel for how many laps?
the issue here and i do hate to say it is the talent.

the secondary accident which took dan- was caused by drivers checking up on the oval in turn. the car behind were going to blast through the smoke but drivers checked.
there was a considerable amount of rookie behavior. danica drove correctly held her line foot down, she did it right, and a car sailed over her, same thing through the field. I mention danica because she is oft criticised as a filler, but she showed what she has learned as a verteran. wheldon knew to keep it planted and drive through the smoke, and what happened a car checked up.
i could be completely off or partially off but i feel this is what i saw, there is insane rookie and preparation for the INDY500 and it works well, not every oval needs a month of prep, but most drivers do.
i wont say it is 100% safe, but we have had more races than not with clean safe finishes and full run races, death in the ring is infact a reality of racing we can minimize it as a possibility, perhaps the new safety cells and monocoque will make it go away, but it is racing even formula fords has taken its share of lives, and i even recall a formula Vee death, so it isn't Indy's folly it is human nature to go faster and win at escape the inevitable.

and paradise city is right on the money

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by nickyf1

Pretty good article by Robin Miller on the matter:
http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...r-oval-madness

An interesting article. Glad to see the Hansford device mentioned.

[Razzzor]

Well Indycar can't just stop racing on ovals. Half the fans love the oval racing and find non-ovals boring. That's part of why IRL took over from ChampCar, because the ovals got more fans. I personally enjoy non-ovals better, but I guess I'm the minority. And with Indycar already in a losing battle with the hugely popular Nascar, you can't expect them to just dump the ovals. That's what makes comments from *******s like Jimmie Johnson even more disrespectful. He might be Nascar's best driver, but he's also Indycar's direct rival and his comments that Indycar has no right to be on ovals and they should leave them, are just not needed.

They have to be more careful with where they run. Clearly the Las Vegas track was the wrong type of oval.

It's hard to blame the rookies as not having enough experience as well. They have their feeders series the Indy Lights and up until 2010 the Atlantics. The incident started with Hinchcliffe and Cunningham. Cunningham's won the Indy 500 Lights race 3 times and has been racing ovals since 2005. Hinchcliffe's been racing on ovals since 2006. What more experience do they need? It was just a tiny amount of contact between them. It's more the fact that the field was so compressed, that's the problem.

A crash like this wouldn't happen at Indianapolis.

[bjohnsonsmith]

I think there's even more reason now, to look at what made CART successful, as far as the racing is concernned and take that and apply it to IndyCar.

I remember IndyCar pre split and from a racing/safety aspect it worked well and improved vastly under CART.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by Razzzor

Well Indycar can't just stop racing on ovals. Half the fans love the oval racing and find non-ovals boring. That's part of why IRL took over from ChampCar, because the ovals got more fans. I personally enjoy non-ovals better, but I guess I'm the minority. And with Indycar already in a losing battle with the hugely popular Nascar, you can't expect them to just dump the ovals. That's what makes comments from *******s like Jimmie Johnson even more disrespectful. He might be Nascar's best driver, but he's also Indycar's direct rival and his comments that Indycar has no right to be on ovals and they should leave them, are just not needed.

They have to be more careful with where they run. Clearly the Las Vegas track was the wrong type of oval.

It's hard to blame the rookies as not having enough experience as well. They have their feeders series the Indy Lights and up until 2010 the Atlantics. The incident started with Hinchcliffe and Cunningham. Cunningham's won the Indy 500 Lights race 3 times and has been racing ovals since 2005. Hinchcliffe's been racing on ovals since 2006. What more experience do they need? It was just a tiny amount of contact between them. It's more the fact that the field was so compressed, that's the problem.

A crash like this wouldn't happen at Indianapolis.

The irl won the war because they outspent and paid off people to make a lame "merger" happen. Nothing more nothing less. Had nothing to do with ovals and the irl is responsible for closing down tracks like Nazereth and Milwaukee and the irl is looking at running at very few ovals next year. And now they are desperately adopting the Champcar model of street races to try to stay alive.

A crash like this could happen and even a single car accident with Tony Renna's car getting air underneath it and airborne resulting in his death.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by mountainstar

The irl won the war because they outspent and paid off people to make a lame "merger" happen. Nothing more nothing less. Had nothing to do with ovals and the irl is responsible for closing down tracks like Nazereth and Milwaukee and the irl is looking at running at very few ovals next year. And now they are desperately adopting the Champcar model of street races to try to stay alive.

A crash like this could happen and even a single car accident with Tony Renna's car getting air underneath it and airborne resulting in his death.

To be honest, I feel IndyCar is in it's death throws, just like Champ Car and the sad fact is Dan Wheldon's death is a reflection on the state of US open wheel racing; ill thought out, gimmicky and time it was ended as far as the IRL is concerned.

[gttouring]

So what then just let USAC silvercrowns run the indy 500?
To be mature and maintain what is part of racing there is always death all sports face crippling and deadly injuries, Forge ahead and make it all excellent don't run from tragedy- learn from it.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by gttouring

So what then just let USAC silvercrowns run the indy 500?
To be mature and maintain what is part of racing there is always death all sports face crippling and deadly injuries, Forge ahead and make it all excellent don't run from tragedy- learn from it.

I just don't think you and others are getting the big picture.

We all might get it. But the irl doesn't get it, never has and never will. The facts over 15 years prove that out. Time for people to stop thinking tony george and the hulman clan is as smart as they are.

The indy racing league DOES NOT GET IT. Period. They no hear you.