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I think there are two things being missed here with what happened. It appeared to me that the roll hoop was damaged and weakened from the intial flips and possible hit with the wall before the fence tore it off. It also seems his head hit the wall along with the fence. Raising the walls would not have helped in this kind of incident, if anything, it may have done the same exact thing.

This was one of those freak accidents, that sadly took the life of a great young man. He will be greatly missed. =(

The most shocking thing about it for me is after the Texas double header was so shitty, racing quality wise, I went into this weekend kind of lowering my expectations expecting to see another new event promoted heavily by the IRL off the track and not living up to expectations on it.

Even when the race started I was still thinking "this won't last", but not in a morbid "here comes a crash" way, more that the tyres wouldn't last and we'd be back to a single file procession soon enough

Then the crash happened and I felt sick...

It's saddening to hear the drivers really weren't happy about racing at Vegas.

Maybe now they'll realise if they're not happy about anything they should get together and talk about it.
To hell with the bravado attitude, to hell with speaking out against the series, of all the people who'd know about the sutibility of the track and those cars, it'll be them so they should damn well be listened to!

No matter what has happend... one thing is for sure. Just like when Dale Earnhardt died in 2001, NASCAR made a 360 change on saftey, and because of his death, they made the safer walls for EVERYONE and made safer cars. IRL will follow suit and do the same thing. I only say this, because Dan was a hudge name to IRL, and with all ALL the drivers saying it is NOT safe on the big oval tracks, ETC. The media covrage on Dan's death will bring changes to IRL as we know it. Maybe his death will change the way tracks make saftey catch fences? Who knows.. but I expect over the years to come, big changes to openwheel racing in general.

After Jeff Bodines crash at daytona in 2000, they changed the trucks. They used to be able to pop wheelies if they hit the tires at the right angle. Maybe IRL will put saftey guards on the wheels, so they can not lock and launch? Who knows... This situation just sucks all together.

Not to be a dick, but it's the complete opposite in regards to the SAFER Barriers. They were funded by IRL and installed at IRL tracks as early as 2002. It took until 2006 for NASCAR to finish getting them into their own ovals.

True, but NASCAR did make HANS mandatory after Dale's accident and the CoT is quite possibly the safest closed wheel car in the world.

I read the Times, and they did quite well today; a page in the Register, two pages in Sport, and another page after that on what it means for IndyCar (the 'Senna moment').

I hope they don't go down the F1 route after Senna died. That was a massive kneejerk that took years to put right, and judging by the response that some of the run-off areas on new tracks get, maybe it's not been put right entirely. NASCAR had a far better and more composed response and that is what IndyCar need to do now.

Frankly, I don't think there's much they can do, short of the common sense of not running on the bowl circuits, not running 34 cars (although that accident would've happened even with the 28 they usually have, there was absolutely no give and far too much take for that early in a race), introducing a licensing system (tell the Saavedras and Visos of the field to race lawnmowers or something), and maybe have some sort of investigation into whether catch fencing is the best option to do the jobs that are required of it. There was very little wheel-to-wheel overlapping on Sunday, it was just cars running right over the back of one another, so I don't think there's much they can do to the cars. Anything that can be done will have hopefully already been addressed in the design of the DW001.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

There was certainly a huge lack of patience leading up to the crash. They should realise that it is a long race and trying three or four wide that early isn't going to get you the win.

I think for lesser experienced drivers, they should have a minimum experience of oval races in the lower formula. An Indy style rookies program and have the experienced drivers there to guide them.

When Jeff and I were driving up to Toledo for the ARCA race this weekend, we were talking about Vegas, and Jeff was worried there was going to be a terrible crash. I told him I hoped they would get strung out single file like they did at Texas. It'd be a boring race, but at least we'd make it through the last race with these horrible crapwagons and be done with the season. No such luck.

I think I've finally figured out what's been bothering me about this crash the most. The shear, unadulterated, brutal violence of it. We've all seen horrifying crashes, but none of us have ever seen anything like what we saw on Sunday. That's the part I can't get over. We'll get past Dan's death and we'll remember what a great driver he was. In a few years his memory and deeds on the track will be spoken with reverance, as they are now. He's all ready been imortalized with many of the other greats on the Borg Warner Trophy and that's something that we'll all be able to remember. In 25 years at the 125th anniversary of the Indy 500 we'll all be able to say where we were when we saw the late, great Dan Wheldon come from nowhere to win the 100th anniversary race. His name will be spoken in the same manner as the other legends of the Brickyard.

But for right now, it hurts because he was taken from us, his wife and family, far too soon in an accident that was so unbelievably violent that it pales in comparison to anything else you can think of. And that my TBK friends, is what is so disturbing about this crash. That's what I, and I think a lot of us, are having a hard time coming to grips with. We've always said it was possible, but until we actually saw the worst it could be, I'm not sure any of us really believed that it could be that bad. I know I didn't.

Agree with this. Its great to have this community here so we can all share our feelings. Since the start of 2010 - in all series - there have been some monumental crashes and everyone's walked away (or at least, not suffered fatal injuries) so I think that somehow makes it worse.

Just watched that last lap at Indy again and well, maybe that happened for a reason.

And yes, the brutality of the crash just makes it so much worse

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

Sorry to be picky, but I'm sure you meant every other accident pales in comparison to this accident.

But, yeah, I do agree with your post. I can't seem to shake the mental image if those cars piling into the accident, flying through the air like unguided missiles. It was shocking.

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TBK Premier League Prediction Game Champion 2010/11

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It was horrible, and certainly the worst accident I've ever seen. As someone who was sat watching Fontana in October 1999, I never thought I'd say that about another crash.

Glad Tony Kanaan isn't retiring. He's been through Greg Moore and now he's lost another friend. If there's any justice in the world he'll be the guy to take over Dan's crown of reigning Indy 500 champion next May.

I wasn't watching motorsports until 2003/4, so this is certainly the worst crash I've ever seen, no doubt about it. Just the sheer violence of it, the debris, flames and number of cars involved. Horrible. Re-lived it so many times in my head.

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

I definitely agree with Westracing01 and Phil1993. Wheldon will be remembered for long, his trick at Indy this year was amazing, two years the runner up and now he came from out of nowhere to win the centennial race. Real racer.

Now, the other thing. It is so sad that like Phil1993 said, there's been many insanely massive crashes during the last two years, mindboggling flips and destruction and yet everyone has lived to tell the tale. Many people said that this won't last, racers everywhere around the world take huge chances and walk away by pure luck. Many racers have said already that there's so much people feeling that they might get injured in serious accidents, but not dying. It's truly an awful reality check for every racer in the world. Death is still present in the sports.

Two other things that I've been wondering today: media and the accident itself.

I hate it so much how the mainstream media is taking this. I remember a few years back when a football player suffered a stroke and died on the field, it wasn't shown on the sports news as it would have shocked the viewers and was concidered rather tastless. They rather tell about the promising player, his family and his achievements in life and he'll be missed by football community. Now when a racer dies, the articles are like "Indy 500-champ dies in big pile-up" where at least Finnish media used rather disgusting terms for pile-up and the description word on it that I cannot translate that well. Maybe a word spectacular would be close, which is awful sensational term from rather conservative news channel. Also all they are showing is the violent crash from multiple angles cut like for a movie scene and all they tell is that he was the only driver that was offered the chance to win huge prize money and Kimi Räikkönen was one of the drivers that was wanted for this event. No respect what so ever for Dan Wheldon. They ended the bit by saying that "the new champion Dario Franchitti cried openly the loss of a fellow countryman" and that's it, "good night folks".

Now, in what part it is ok to show the racing accident that kills a driver, but it is not ok to show a dead football player? Who the f*ck can justify that? I don't even want to go on tabloid journalism with this or their internet forums, when concervative news media takes this route. So far I've only read autosport articles about Wheldon, because the sensational journalism is so f*cked up. This has only showed me that how many f*cked up people there are in the world, that want to go on and throw their sh*t on the dead, no matter if it's a celebrity or sportsman. Thank God we have this forum, where people understand this sports and pays the respect that should be paid when someone passes away. Relative or a sportsman you have or have not met or know before, it doesn't matter to me, it's a tragedy and people should keep that first in their minds before shouting out their ideas about how things are.

Now for the accident itself and I'm sorry if I sound harsh at here. I have the highest respect on Dan Wheldon and his family and friends, my language might not be that clean as something might get lost in translation, but I say all of the following with all the respect and don't want to go boasting with this at all. Like Westracing01 said, what probably bothers us the most here, is the sheer brutal violency of the crash. We've seen a car go into fencing before and it's always scary, but now it was different. There was so many cars getting involved, destroyed into pieces in seconds, burning and flying around. You couldn't tell how many cars were involved or keep your eye on all of it. It all went so over the top of our heads, over anything we've seen before or had ever imagined what might happen under this kind of conditions. No one wanted to see that and many feared that it might happen. I had hope for Dan to survive for all the way about 15 minutes before the official announcement. Hope and probably a bit of denial, eventhough I saw quite early that rollbar of the car was gone and the kevlar coated fuel cell behind drivers head was clearly visible as was the engine's red heads. After thinking about all of that for two days, I have some sort of feeling that it doesn't matter if the head trauma was caused by direct impact or just the forces of the impact. Kenny Bräck survived over 220G's in his accident at Texas 2003. I can imagine that similar forces destroyed the rollbar near Wheldon's helmet with such impact angle, that just the sudden deceleration was unsurvivable. This might have been the case with any kind of race car in such extreme conditions. Many have said that they saw black mark on Wheldon's helmet on those close up pictures. I believe people refer on the dark area over left side of the visor. If you watch the onboard interview from warm up lap, you could tell that this part of helmet was black already.

I don't like to speculate about this anymore, it doesn't make any difference anymore. I just don't want to see this type of crashes anymore, it just feels so hard to bear. I had so many thoughts about giving up watching motorsports after this and giving up driving snowmobiles, that's the most dangerous hobby that I have and I've really pushed my luck with it, even cheated death in two big accidents I've had. It's really a moment that stops you to think about how short life is and how fast it can take the cruel twist to a premature end. These are the things some of us and some of the professional race drives around the world have gone through after the loss of Dan Wheldon. Everything seems to be fine, life's playing the high note and in a blink of an eye it's all gone. We think about giving up our passion that has suddenly so obvious fatal risk in it. Many have speculated that Davey Hamilton, Tony Kanaan, Helio Castroneves, Dario Franchitti and Paul Tracy should walk away now when they still can make the choice. But like Tony Kanaan already told, this is not a path that should be taken now. Dale Jr and Mark Martin didn't take that path and neither did Gerhard Berger. There's many reasons behind these decissions, that each have made in this type of situations, that has stopped us earlier. Mostly it's about accepting the risk again, the same old risk that had always been there. You could live your life avoiding all the dangerous things all your life and still end up dying in your sleep in young age in your own bed.

As much I hate what happened on 16th of October and don't want to see it happening again, sooner or later I'm watching racing again (next F1 race). And when the first snow falls I start to think about driving hard with snowmobile, it's also a form of motorsports. It's a gruel and selfish sports but it's also our passion too. We do it because we love it and it gives us the thrills we seek. That's the reason to carry on, but it still doesn't chance the destiny of Dan Wheldon or the fact that no one wants to see it ever happening again. It's our passion and motorsports community is strong and unite, it has been and it will be. Mainstream media and people with "I told you this would happen" -attitude should take a moment with themselves, a reality check that the motorsports community was forced to take.

All my thoughts and condolences goes for Dan Wheldon, his family and people who were close to him. Dan was truly a great person and he will be missed and remembered in motorsports community.

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

Wheldon's final words according to Sam Schmidt: "I’m ready to go for this thing; we can win this thing."

http://www.indycar.com/news/show/55-izod-indycar-series/50919-schmidt-and-39-he-was-going-for-itand-39/

This article sums it up quite well, Sam Schmidt is also a great man so his words are good to hear right now. Other thing that really shows how down are the feelings at Indycar organization as there are no official results or any updates on youtube since 15th of October.

Also, I'm a subscriber for Indycar Nation newsletter. Haven't received the usual race review...

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

Wonderful article by Jeff Olson on Autosport

[spoiler][/spoiler]

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

This exactly that what is bothering me since then as well.
Also the fact that whenever there was a fatal accident in racing it usually included one car. Here we had 15 cars (!) piling into each other. 14 drivers walked away...one didn't. And this is so horrible that I don't even have words for this to describe.

Totally agree. It's Tuesday and I am yet to shudder the thoughts about what we saw on Sunday away.
As someone who only knew Dan as a spectator, it's still really hard, especially given how involved he has been this year with the broadcasts. I cannot imagine how his family and close friends are dealing with it all.

One thing that hasn't changed one bit in my 25 years of watching motorsport: mainstream media will hardly pay attention to it, until someone dies. Then they try and sensationalize it, decry the safety, and show as graphic and as gory of a picture that they can. Usually while getting the facts wrong.

I hate the "$5 million prize" angle I've seen in stories. Dan Wheldon is a race car driver, I bet he was more concerned about having a good race for a potential full time ride next year. The accident was not started anywhere near Dan Wheldon. It was incredibly violent and involved a lot of the field. Will Power also was thrown into the fence, yet the media doesn't tries to imply that Will Power was over-driving, because thankfully he hit at the right angle and survived. (If he didn't, the tabloids surely would find yet another excuse to react in faux horror. )

Have to agree too.As it started I was like "Shit, now we have what we all feared to happen".I know its easy to say I knew that something bad had happen right after the crash, afterwards.But as I saw all that cars tumbling out of Turn 2 from the backstraight Camera, 3 Cars of them upside down, I just knew that was that horrendous crash we never wanted to see in the IRL amd I really feared we habe multiple dead Drivers.

I really asking myself how the hell all other Drivers walked away from it.In all that Tragedy I think we have to say the Fact that we "only" lost Dan shows us how high the safety is those days!

Agreed. This has been the same with media always, makes you wonder how much of other things - like politics and economy for example - they get wrong if they don't get this kind of things right ever in the sports section.

I don't think for a one bit that Wheldon was pushing for the money, he was pushing for a good result like everyone else in the field. He just happened to be the one who ran out his luck from those 15 drivers. Pippa Mann, JR Hildebrand and Will Power were also very close on that.

For what I'm understood, Dan Wheldon already had Andretti Autosport GoDaddy.com seat for 2012, right? At least it was widely speculated and given the fact that he was involved developing the car and had recent Indy 500 win under his belt had probably took all this kind of pressure away from him.

And like Raikkon said, for us it's really hard and we're just the spectators and how hard it must be for the family. A bit over five years ago our family had shocking news that my uncle, in age of 47, former hockey player had passed away. It was an untimely death out from the blue for all of us. The pain was unbearable for the first year, the second year it was tolerable. But you can never really get over it, that's the unfortunate thing for the family and close friends, you have to live with it the rest of your life. With all the pain and sorrow, with the guilt and blaming, with happy memories and anger, thought a day, through a year, every anniversary, every family party. It's a heavy load to carry in your heart.

What comes to the spectator part - I still can get emotional about Ayrton Senna's death when I watch F1 races or tributes to him. And that's what, over 17 years ago? I think that for me as a witness for both fatal incident, Senna and Wheldon, these two will always be with me when ever I follow my passion on motorsports.

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