Horrendous Indy car crash in Vegas -- Update: RIP Dan Wheldon

[Bubbler]

Did he say anything that was incorrect?

In particular, was this incorrect?

"Their average was 225? I've never been 225 mph in my life - and that's their average around an oval. They are brave men and women that drive those things," Johnson said. "There's very little crumple zone around the driver, it's an open cockpit and then you add open wheels - it's just creating situations to get the car off the ground at a high rate of speed. And you can't control the car when it's off the ground."

I'm sorry, but 225 mph is way too fast for cars like that. Johnson is right.

Johnson doesn't know shirt. They used to run close to 240 at Indy. Speeds have gone down.

Once again, with feeling, the problem yesterday wasn't speed. It was too many cars on too small of a track with an aero package that didn't allow for separation of the field. To extrapolate anything else out of this is silly.

That's exactly what Stewart and Blundell are saying in that link. As for Jody Scheckter, unlike Stewart and Blundell, he's never raced IndyCar in his life, so take it for what it's worth, which is concern over his son, but his knowledge of oval racing is nonexistent.

And also, NASCAR hardly has any justification to point the finger at IndyCar over safety. There's been as many deaths since 2000 in NASCAR than IndyCar. They didn't even mandate seatbelts, etc., until after Earnhardt died. The SAFER barrier, used at nearly every oval track now, wasn't developed by NASCAR, it was developed by IndyCar.

Jimmie Johnson can smoke my big white pole.

 

[wicked]

If Bernard and Barnhart aren't fired for this, the series is done.

And 240 at Indy was not good. See Scott Brayton's crash.

 

[Bubbler]

If Bernard and Barnhart aren't fired for this, the series is done.

And 240 at Indy was not good. See Scott Brayton's crash.

That's why they dialed it down.

You can mandate safety to the hilt. All series should mandate safety to the hilt. It's why IndyCar has blood on its hands for breaking its own rules on how many cars can be in the field. Idiotic decision with the worst possible consequence.

But even if IndyCar or any other series does every last thing in its power to make conditions safe for the drivers, there's never, ever going to be 100 percent certainty that there will never be a death. So to knee-jerk and say IndyCar should never race on an oval is the ultimate in Chicken Little reasoning.

 

[wicked]

I think that goes without saying. Racing always will carry risk, although at this point the taxicab drivers are probably the closest in the safety race... a lot of nasty stuff has happened in the past 10 years, and everyone's managed to talk about it down the road.

There was massive negligence yesterday. And this idea of waiting for another time to talk about it troubles me, it needs to be addressed now while it's still fresh on folks' minds.

 

[Bubbler]

There was massive negligence yesterday. And this idea of waiting for another time to talk about it troubles me, it needs to be addressed now while it's still fresh on folks' minds.

I agree with this. There was definitely massive negligence in the conditions IndyCar created for the drivers. Barnhart should have been fired long ago. Bernard just pissed away whatever goodwill he had built up in his series stewardship because this $5 million expanded field was his idea.

But for guys like Jimmie Johnson, who has never raced an IndyCar in his life, to turn that into "ban IndyCar racing on ovals" is taking matters way too far.

 

[Batman]

And also, NASCAR hardly has any justification to point the finger at IndyCar over safety. There's been as many deaths since 2000 in NASCAR than IndyCar. They didn't even mandate seatbelts, etc., until after Earnhardt died. The SAFER barrier, used at nearly every oval track now, wasn't developed by NASCAR, it was developed by IndyCar.

Jimmie Johnson can smoke my big white pole.

And on top of that, what happens to be the next stop on the Sprint Cup schedule?
That's right, Talladega. The track that not only invented dangerous pack racing, but actually lures fans in with the promise of seeing "the big one" in its NASCAR advertising.

 

[crimsonace]

Johnson really should know better than to say IndyCars shouldn't race on "any ovals." Indy is different from Milwaukee, which is different from Vegas, which is different from Iowa. What killed Dan Wheldon was a death-wish formula that the series had, until yesterday, dodged for years: banked mid-length ovals with cars featuring massive downforce and inadequate horsepower, resulting in high-speed packs. The formula is what needs to be fixed. Saying "all oval racing should end" isn't the answer.

Given NASCAR's monopolistic attitude towards other series operating in the United States, the Indy diehards generally tune out anything coming from that series unless it comes off Tony Stewart's lips.

The problem isn't IndyCars on ovals. NASCAR also through a slew of fatalities on ovals in the late 1990s-early 2000s with Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin and, of course, Earnhardt. And road courses aren't immune -- Jeff Krosnoff died at Toronto, Gonzalo Rodriguez at Laguna Seca in the old CART cars.

Playthrough is right -- the biggest problem is the formula. Low-horsepower cars with mandated wing angles essentially created restrictor-place racing at 225mph. While it was spectacular -- the 1999 Texas night race and just about any race at Chicagoland are some of the most jaw-dropping races I've ever seen -- it was a major disaster waiting to happen with one slippage of a wheel. Kenny Brack, Ryan Briscoe, Davey Hamilton and Sam Schmidt were lucky -- they survived. Dan Wheldon wasn't. Couple that with Dallara cars that were workhorses, but had a real problem with getting airborne.

After Greg Moore's wreck at California, the CART "blackout incident" at Texas and the wheels going into the stands at Charlotte, there was a real concerted effort to slow down the cars and get them back into the 210s -- of course, they crept back up into the 220s at Indy -- but the result was underpowered cars and mandated wing angles, which created pack racing (or the Hanford device, which is nothing more than leapfrog racing and just as manufactured).

Lots of good came from that awful era -- IMS developing the PEDS, and then the SAFER barriers, HANS devices. And some good was coming from this late era -- the new Indy chassis was designed to have several built-in safety features including an aerodynamic undertray, smaller wings, wheel deflectors and rear attenuators to prevent cars from getting airborne as much as possible. The turbochargers should give more horsepower to force drivers to lift in the corners.

But what tracks are suitable? Phoenix is ISC-owned and gave the series an awful date last time (a Saturday afternoon?). Milwaukee is in mothballs. Michigan is probably the most suitable big oval, but it is ISC-owned and has pretty much given IndyCar the indication it's not welcome back (thereby forcing IndyCar to the awful street course in Belle Isle instead), while California has too much banking post-renovation. IndyCars on concrete is a wreckfest, so that tosses out Nashville and Dover. Gateway has been mothballed. PPIR and Nazareth were bought by ISC and closed.

Of the SMI tracks, Kentucky & New Hampshire are probably the most suitable, but both had major attendance issues this year (the mess from the Cup race at Kentucky appeared to have hurt the IndyCar crowd ... that, and the constant changing of the race date). It might be down to Texas, Indy and Iowa. Although if IndyCar were smart, it would run a Saturday night race at IRP the weekend of the Brickyard 400 and try to rent Phoenix and invite Marlo Klain's wedding party.

The other thing IndyCar needs to do is come up with something similar to the old AAA "1 car per 400 feet" rule for ovals. That's not really totally feasible -- it would mean 20 starters on a 1.5-mile track, 11 on a track like Iowa -- but something like capping the field at 20 at a 1 mile or less track, 26 at a 1.5-mile or less track and 30 at a 2-mile track (and 33 at Indy) would make some degree of sense.

But IndyCar needs to be on ovals. It's a major part of the open-wheel racing tradition in the United States, and IndyCar is the most diverse racing series in the world. CART and Champ Car made a huge mistake when they went to mostly (or in CC's case, all) road/street series and tried to become F1-lite, with a series of poorly-conceived street races that came and went, with a couple of gems -- Long Beach, Cleveland, Road America -- in-between a lot of schedule dreck. IndyCar needs not go that direction.

 

[imjustagirl]

GoDaddy has created a memorial site.

http://www.danwheldonmemorial.com/

 

[Shoeless Joe]

Does Walt Disney World have SAFER barriers now? Seems that would be a good place for a race.

 

[westcoastvol]

Johnson doesn't know shirt. They used to run close to 240 at Indy. Speeds have gone down.

Once again, with feeling, the problem yesterday wasn't speed. It was too many cars on too small of a track with an aero package that didn't allow for separation of the field. To extrapolate anything else out of this is silly.

Jimmie Johnson can smoke my big white pole.

I'd add to this a relatively-freshly paved surface (maybe a couple of years ago and hasn't seen much weather other than heat) that's really sticky, as well, also bunching them up.

LVMS is banked at 20 degrees in the turns and 9 degrees in the straightaways. You can hold your line much easier when there's banking all the way around. You can slow down just by getting out of the throttle without braking.

Indy, by comparison, is banked at 9 degrees in the corners and is flat in the straightaways. Harder to maintain your line and your speed, IMO (although you can certainly stomp on it in the straightaways). Its average width is 46', which certainly seems a lot wider than LVMS. You can see cars go three wide in the straights at Indy, but never more than two wide in the turns and most often, just single-file.

I was surprised that there weren't more cars collected in the wreck yesterday, but fortunately, most everyone held their line.

 

[westcoastvol]

Does Walt Disney World have SAFER barriers now? Seems that would be a good place for a race.

There hasn't been a race there since around 2000. Just the Richard Petty and Indy Car driving experiences. And those cars have governors on the engines so you can't drive at top speeds for obvious reasons. Hopefully, they would have them.

The Homestead track in Miami does have SAFER barriers up.

 

[wicked]

Part of the issue with WDW is that Disney wanted a January race date. The schedule is already spread out enough as it is.