Remembering Dan Wheldon

IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon was killed today at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in a 15-car pileup on lap 12 of 200. The race was immediately red-flagged to clean up the carnage. The drivers who were not involved in the wreck who came around and saw what was left on the next lap described the scene as "something from a Terminator movie", "something from Hollywood that looks way more over the top than would happen in real life." After two hours, what we had all feared was confirmed, that Dan had been killed from "unsurvivable injuries." I was at my dad's house watching with him, and we both immediately broke into tears. The race was not finished. The remaining 19 cars drove five parade laps in Dan's honor.

First and foremost, this has to be one of the worst fatalities IndyCar has ever suffered. I believe you have to go back to Mark Donahue's death in the 80s to find someone that was both a series and Indianapolis 500 champion. Dan was one of the greatest people in the IndyCar paddock. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone that didn't like Dan.

He started the season without a ride. He decided to make calculated moves to put him in strong cars for a few races rather than a so-so car for the year. He shocked the world at Indy this year when he won on the last lap after rookie JR Hildebrand hit the wall on the last lap coming out of turn four. Saddled without a ride for the rest of the season, he was pegged by IndyCar, Dallara, and Honda to be the test driver for the new car coming next season. It's unfortunate that he won't be able to drive the car he developed at full-song.

IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard had put together the IndyCar World Championships as the season finale at Las Vegas. The GoDaddy Challenge was put forth that if an outside driver could come in and win the race, they would take home a $5million paycheck. When no drivers surfaced (Travis Pastrana was interested, then he broke his ankle), a new path was forged. Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon would start from the back of the field (which ended up being 34 cars), and if he could win the race, he'd split the $5million with a lucky fan. By the time the wreck occurred, he had already made up ten spots, and was unfortunately collected.

They say things happen for a reason, and I believe this will end up serving some good to the IndyCar drivers. Drivers seemed to become complacent with the safety of the cars, and had begun to drive each other over-aggressively. The new car coming next season is going to be far superior as far as safety goes. This over-aggressiveness is what spawned this massive pile-up. Two cars were battling too hard (especially for lap 12), the two cars behind them had to slow suddenly, which allowed a car to catch up quickly. There wasn't much space for this car, and he banged wheels with another competitor, and ultimately ended up spinning in front of the back third of the field.

Three cars went airborne, including Dan's. Once someone spins in front of you, you really just become a passenger. Dan hit someone from behind. The tire-to-tire contact from front to rear launched his car toward the catch fence. In one replay angle (which I won't look up, it makes me sick to watch), you see Dan's car hit the catch fence topside first. As soon as he hit the fence, it's plain to see how quickly his car decelerated. This impact also sheared the rollbar off of Dan's car. It is unknown yet what exactly killed him, but if he landed upside-down without a rollbar, that certainly would have done it. I believe it will take the death of a person like Dan Wheldon to really make the drivers think twice about just how hard they are racing another person.

Unfortunately for Dan, this probably wouldn't have happened in the new car. There is a "bumper" on the rear of the car to prevent tire-to-tire contact in incidents like this. Many IndyCar fans have been maligned to this, as well as how far forward the sidepod comes to the front tire, also in an effort to eradicate tire-to-tire contact. Hopefully this crash proves to them why these safety features are being implemented.

IndyCar helped to develop the SAFER barrier over ten years ago to help reduce impact with the retaining wall. These are the steel walls you see with foam behind them. I think it is time to redevelop the fences. If hockey-style plexiglass walls were implemented, I believe that this, too, could have saved Dan's life.

Ultimately, I think IndyCar needs to abandon these 1.5 mile tri-ovals. The cars stay packed together and wrecks like this will continue to happen. They should be running on ovals one mile in length or shorter (Milwaukee, New Hampshire, Iowa, Richmond) and two miles or longer (Indy, California, Michigan). They can even run the 1.5 milers that aren't of tri-oval configuration, which is where the front straight is curved and the back-straight is actually straight. Non-tri-oval tracks like this include Homestead-Miami (which is the only one I can think of right now).

I still can't believe this has happened. Dan was such a great guy on an upswing of his career. Everything was looking up for him. He and his wife had just had a boy, with another on the way. He was interviewed in his car just ten minutes before he was killed. Likely the last words he ever said. Hopefully the death of a person like Dan puts the other drivers in check and will start to run each other with more respect. It is a testament to IndyCar safety, however, that of the 15 drivers involved, 11 walked away injury-free, and three with minor injuries.

At the very least, Dan died doing what he loved. This is the Dan Wheldon I will always remember:

Rest in Peace Dan Wheldon, 1978-2011.