Indy 500 Winner Dan Wheldon killed at Indy World Chamionships

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I just watched a Youtube video of the crash. It looked like he go slammed into in the side at extremely high speed.

Here's the video

Now the question is what hwent wrong, and what can be done to keep drivers from dying in similar circumstances?

edited 16th Oct '11 3:36:21 PM by Acebrock

What a shame...

And in a sport like that? Nothing. You're traveling at insane speeds. Even the best protection in the world isn't a guarantee.

Dude, accidents happen: Racing is somewhat dangerous and the drivers knew it when they signed up. There's no need to make it safer.

Not every death is a tragedy, not every fatal accident requires more safety rules.

edited 16th Oct '11 3:49:59 PM by SavageHeathen

"Not every death is a tragedy"

Oh so many people disagree with that that I feel no reason to resonf.

"not every fatal accident requires more safety rules."

Except a fatal accident pretty much says that theere might be something to improve upon in the safety department. If something goes wrong and someone dies, then there should at least be an investigation to make sure things are done so that it doesn't happen again.

Damn, another racer dead...

Every fatal accident needs an investigation to determine whether there's anything sensible that can be changed to avoid similar incidents in future. Sometimes the answer is simply "Nothing", and that's that, but fairly frequently there is something.

A good man and a good racer died. Rest in Peace, Dan.

Insofar as safety goes... cars of that design are really inherently unsafe, it goes with the design for maximum speed. An investigation will be brought forth, I reckon. Will it discover anything? I don't know. I'm fairly sure it won't reveal as much as the investigation into Dale Earnhart's death did. But it might reveal something. Who can say? Sometimes things just happen and there's nothing that can be done about it.

Anyone find it Harsher in Hindsight that this happened two months after Senna opened in the US?

Not really a fan of racing but still, that sucks.

At the same time, these things unfortunately happen. If something can be done to make sure it doesn't happen again, I'm all for it but sometimes you just aren't lucky.

Here is a different view of the accident.

RIP Dan Wheldon.

^^^Not quite, since that was Formula One.

Its the downside to racing, really. Human bodies plus mistakes at ridiculously high speeds = Horrific death. On the upside..it was probably quick.

edited 16th Oct '11 10:33:23 PM by Midgetsnowman

I doubt there's much in the way of safety requirements they could enact, in relation to how racers conduct themselves. I guess they could try and improve the equipment, but...

Rest in peace, I suppose. I'm afraid I don't know who this is, but that's not really necessary to offer (cheap, perhaps) condolences... to the internet.

Looks like the cockpit area (and therefore his head) might have hit the top of the barrier...a car skidding that way along the advertisement boards above the barriers isn't normal... :(

Except adding some kind of protection bar above the cockpit so racers can't accidentally be decapitated by another car there's not much to do...

edited 16th Oct '11 11:24:22 PM by TheStupidExclamationMark

Formula One style?

I know since 1993 there has been a lot of safety improvements (including a constant battle to make slower, and now cheaper cars). Maybe IndyCar can learn from other, similar, motorsports — whether they will, is another matter...

I thought they already used the additional neck protection, which unfortunately doesn't help if a sharp piece of barrier, car bit or wing hits the driver's helmet. E.g. Massa was nearly blinded some time back when a piece of car suspension still attached to a wheel clubbered him in the head and pierced the helmet...there's also been a couple of near misses with cars ending on top of each other and front wings just not decapitating drivers. Against these kind of accidents only an actual cockpit (jet fighter style) might help - to a degree.