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Only really applied to the use of 1.5 mile ovals, which several drivers warned about. The safety of the cars is not any worse than any other cars statistically speaking (especially given the significantly higher speeds of this series), and this especially applies to cars taking off.

Sorry but if you look at the big picture of motorsport and take everything into account, there isn't actually a major issue here besides the pack racing. But even without pack racing, this could have happened in the wrong circumstances.

Indeed, the floor had some regulation changes during the last decade and the engineers took the best out of the rules. The design allowed air to flow under the floor and wheel arches when car was getting sideways, the lift genereated quickly. They did some fine tuning on the rules and there hasn't been more flips.

But like you said, a lift off can happen for any type of cars under wrong circumstances, it's not a design flaw, it's physics.

If I remember correctly, Mercedes CLRs had their flips because of design flaw on its floor. The front of the car was supposed to generate ground effect but at given situation, when ground clearance was small enough in high speeds, the floor stalled suddenly and the car losts its ground effect completely from the front, which lifted the front just enough to allow excess amount of air to go underneath the car to make it fly. Disturbed airflows underneath the car caused those infamous flips. For Indycar it has been more or less an impact lifting up the nose of the car.

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

Well Peugeot have had 2 accidents since the fins were introduced which ended up with upside down cars, but they've refused to talk about those circumstances.



Yeah, the front stalled when following other cars. The drivers were under strict orders not to follow cars over the crests, but eventually it was going to happen and when Dumbreck followed a Toyota over the hill, it happened again.

Probably showing my ignorance here, but has it been discussed to double the height of the SAFER barrier around the turns where there arent any spectators? From all the replays I have seen and the skid marks in this photo if the wall were higher Dan would have slid along the wall, not launched over it and into the catch fence. I am guessing that the possibility of debris remaining in the track would be some concern,but considering the consequences that is preferable.

That was one of the first thing I asked here, also. Why can't the walls be higher in corners or high accident risk areas? For example at Indy, the short chute has stands, but they are already 5 - 6 meters above the top of the walls. Why can't they raise the wall like they did in 70's with good results?

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

on the banked tracks it's only a question of finding a way to support the wall from behind to stop it falling over onto the track, on the flat tracks like Indy, it should be a no brainer, but goes back to the age old saying of value for money, tbh, if I owned Indy, I'd have raised the walls years ago.

Pork Chop tweeted about dressing up as Darth Vader for Halloween

Awesome.

Raising the walls would be a good idea at the tracks with the non spectator area turns. Even if its just a foot or so. They wouldnt have to have to raise the concrete either. They could just put some sort of the SAFER barrier up, like at Iowa. That track just has SAFER barrier.

It's too bad that a Lexan like material, except stonger doesn't exist. If catchfencing could be replaced with a clear smooth surface material you'd have better safety and visibility.

Lexan is probably plenty strong enough. Catch fencing doesn't really take big impacts, it just has a habit of holding onto the car and ripping it apart like a grater. That's fine for a stock car, but not for a single seater.

They looked into it years ago, but the costs were astronomical and not even close to realistic.

its a tough decision. can u really put a price on dan wheldon and the impact his death and the crash has put on the series compared to some lexan? as i posted elsewhere. my fiance never was interested in racing and i finally talked her into watching the vegas race with me and she saw that a few laps in. i know she will never sit and care about the series again and how many others were in a similar situation with the series out there that could have been effected by the wreck. they lost fans, credibility, a great guy and money (im sure they will have to pay to void the race contract for '12) all within a matter of seconds. with all that being said tho, would lexan have save dan? nope! there would still be flex and have to be post between each section of lexan as there is with hockey. as we have all seen it was the post that did the fatal damage and short from being in a fully enclosed car i believe nothing would have saved dan that fateful day :/

You can't put a price on a life, no. But the fact is, if it costs too much to do then it can't be done. IndyCar doesn't have the money to do this sort of thing even to it's big venues, and they don't have the power to tell them to do it. NASCAR do, but the fences work fine with NASCAR.



Flex is a good thing, it absorbs impact. From an engineering standpoint, posts on lexan are very easy to solve since you put them behind them. It isn't going to be just a beefed up hockey fence people are talking about - they are talking about stuff designed specifically for racing cars. It can be done. It is (relatively speaking) quite easy. It is horrendously expensive and unrealistic though.

Unfortunately you can never account for all possibilities. In Dan's case, it probably would have been better to have no fencing at all, and to let the car fly out of the circuit into something soft. That would generally be a ridiculous idea for the other 99% of accidents though.

I'm not sure I'd like the glass idea as a spectator. You probably get a better view than catchfencing, but there's just something about looking through glass that feels.. unnatural?

Plus after a few hours of rubber, exhaust and dirt sprayed on it it won't be nearly as transparent.

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To be honest, a bigger issue would probably be glares and reflections. It'd be a pain in the ass trying to get it all just right so nobody has bright light in their face constantly, and that's just the fans. Lighting the tracks would also become more problematic. Frankly, finding the glass to do it is the easy part.

Dumb question: Why do we need a fence anyway on places like vegas (apart from the stands)? What would happen without the fence and the adboards? A car would fly over the wall and out into the flat empty desert. Alsmost like a gravel trap. Besides the drop from it's flight it would'nt even suffer a impact....

You've got to be kidding me...

lol

i know: lets make a huge pile of pillow feathers around the track.