RIP Dan Wheldon

Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and IndyCar Series champion Dan Wheldon has died from his injuries sustained in a crash at the IndyCar Series finale at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, it has been confirmed. He was 33.

Wheldon was moving his way through the 34-car field after starting from the back of the field, which was part of his $5 million challenge to win the race. His was one of the last cars to get involved in the crash, and was sent flying from the bottom of the racetrack into the wall on the outside.

Wheldon's Sam Schmidt Motorsports car suffered severe damage to the topside, including its rollhoop structure, and once he was extracted and other drivers were treated at the scene, his car was quickly covered with tarpaulin.

He was airlifted from the circuit's medical centre to University Medical Centre in Las Vegas.

I was so angry during the year because of his not getting a permanent seat but now this... it's too much. I personally can't stand death in motorsport... I mean, I'm not strong when it happens, doesn't matter if he's a driver that I like or I hate, I just get paralyzed.

RIP Dan, you are racing in Heaven now.



Stats: 139 Starts / 7 Wins / 9 Poles / 5 Fastest laps

Just been watching this. So sad to hear. Thoughts go out to his family and young kids especially. RIP Dan.

I just wanted to see the race because of the championship being at stake...but now all of that doesn't matter anymore. It makes you think about why these guys fight... Nobody deserves to die like that!

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Simply horrible news. RIP

RIP Dan.

gutted!, really gutted!

this reminds me so much of Greg's accident as there are so many similarities... they where both driving double numbers 99 - 77, they both started last on the last race of the championship with 2 contenders to decide the title, Franchitti being one... both horrible accidents in the early stages of the race, flipping over in an oval (something any driver out there is scared off)

been a fan of Dario for very long, 12+1 years now.. and this is the second close friend he looses in the tracks... he'll probably retire after this... i know i would



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2011 07:27AM by Slash.

I don't know what to say, it's just devastating. Just yesterday I was looking forward to him coming to the Gold Coast this weekend to race in the V8 Supercars, and this just shows how quickly life can change.

I have been lucky in that I haven't experienced many deaths in motorsport, and I've still never seen one happen in a race I was actively watching, but this one really got to me, probably the most since Greg Moore in 1999, which was the first death I really had to come to terms with in motorsport. I just can't imagine what it would've been like to follow motorsport decades ago and have deaths on a regular basis.

RIP and my condolences to his family and friends.

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X (@ed24f1)

RIP Dan Wheldon

Shocking news when i came home and read this.

I think he is in a better place now and can watch all the races down from heaven but its so sad that a young man has to die in a race like this.

I remember i saw him the first time when playing the indy car game from cm

anyway i wish his family all the best because of theire huge loss today/yesterday.

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"And thats the bottom line cause Alonso0506 said so"

Devastating! I'm really surprised with this! I was at my girlfriend's apartment watching TV with her and... could not believe the news. The image at the screen could not be real but it was. And then another life hat ended tragically... Dan's life... which I could see in action here at Sao paulo Indy 300. Sad, really sad...
R.I.P.

The accident was absolutely horrible. For me, this crash is as tragic as the death of Ayrton Senna.

R.I.P.

RIP Dan. I can't really believe it...

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GPGSL: S6 - TafuroGP Tester (14th) /// S7 - ART Tester (6th) /// S8 - Demon Driver (13th) /// S9 - Demon/Snake Driver (13th) /// S10 - Snake Driver (???) ///]
"My ambition is handicapped by laziness" - Charles Bukowski

RIP Dan Wheldon. It's most certainly unfair that people like him die so young, whilst pricks who more than likely don't deserve to live (murderers, terrorists etc.) get to live on

Horrible accident...

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Oh Dear.....

I watched him win Indy 500 this year....

Celebrate with his family, the team and Bryan Herta...

I am lost for words...

My condolences to his family....

The accident itself was horrible, I think he hit the wall topside-first, like Greg Moore, and stood no chance whatsoever.

You know... every so often this happens on ovals and everyone says that it's a risk that they all take, etc etc. But the simple truth is that the cars are too fast and too light for their speed. How many deaths will Indycar allow before they start making some changes? I know they are heavier than F1 cars but they still flip FAR too easily after front-end contact. I counted three in that accident alone. When Senna died, F1 took a step back and said... this is too dangerous, we need to make X changes, and the result was no more deaths.

Why are Indycar incapable of similar change? Or is it that the added "risk" contributes to the lure and to the Hollywood lifestyle the drivers tend to lead?



RIP Dan Wheldon - an ambassador for British racing drivers.


Also, this is in the wrong forum, but let's not get too anal about that.

Quote
loque
You know... every so often this happens on ovals and everyone says that it's a risk that they all take, etc etc. But the simple truth is that the cars are too fast and too light for their speed. How many deaths will Indycar allow before they start making some changes? I know they are heavier than F1 cars but they still flip FAR too easily after front-end contact. I counted three in that accident alone. When Senna died, F1 took a step back and said... this is too dangerous, we need to make X changes, and the result was no more deaths.

The cars are too fast for the nature of circuit and style of driving that brings. It's (usually) fine in NASCAR to run at 200mph side-by-side as that doesn't often result in much more than a bit of barging and angry reactions - seldom does it result in a big accident, and even less so in such a horrific one. Sadly accidents like this do still happen in NASCAR, with cars launched into the catch-fencing and being shredded.

It's nothing to do with weight though. An F1 car weighs 640 kg including the driver. An Indycar apparently weighs 691.7kg without the driver. F1 cars are just as likely to get airborne at high speed - the difference between 160mph and 220mph isn't likely to stop a car becoming airborne, as Patrese, Webber and many others have shown. If the car gets slightly off the ground and the air underneath them, they're helpless. The car could weigh double what they do and they would still fly. As we know, the downforce provided by the wings at those speeds is more than the weight of the car, and still the front lifts. The other issue with weight would be the effect in accidents - for more inertia would offer more serious accidents in what might otherwise be an innocent one.

Whether Wheldon was killed by the wall or the catch-fencing (from the video it looks like his car went top-side first into both, running on top of the wall upside down for a few moments before it was grabbed by the catch-fencing) I don't know, but either could have killed him. As unsurvivable accidents go, that's one of the the worst I've seen - it's odd thing to say, but with some accidents, you feel there's a hope, but sadly Dan didn't have a chance. Short of removing the catch-fencing and replacing it with some sort of perspex wall, I can't see what else could be done.

Any number of drivers could have been killed yesterday. Pippa Mann and Will Power had horrific crashes at the same time, Mann travelling like a missile into the wall upside down and Power covering a ludicrous distance in the air at an insane height. The distance from Power's shadow to his car shows just how high he was.

RIP Dan.

I think you have to recognise that these Dallara chassis' are also around 8 years old now. Their design is not built on a modern day level of safety.

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

Ferrari2007 Wrote:
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> I think you have to recognise that these Dallara
> chassis' are also around 8 years old now. Their
> design is not built on a modern day level of
> safety.

That's exactly my point - why are they still using them? I don't know the politics involved but I'm guessing Dallara have a "contract" to supply those chassis for X amount of years.

Gav - was Wheldon's car the last one to flip?