Unreal photos of Dan Wheldons crash

[ALLSKIING]

They have to stop open wheel cars from racing on oval tracks.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...yCar-champion-dead-15-car-pile-Las-Vegas.html

 

[ctenidae]

F'in Venezuelans.

/instigator car is sponsored by PDVSA, the Venezuelan national oil company

 

[kartski]

Condolences to the Weldon Family.

That race should have never happened. The CEO of the IRL wanted a show. It was the last race for that engine / chassis. It was like they took every last one that would pass tech inspection and put a body in it. Indy is 2.5 miles with much slower corners and they limit the field to 33. LVMS is 1.5 miles, with high bank turns that they just floor all the way around and they started 34. Lot of drivers with (R's) after their name.
Dan won INDY this year but didn't sponsorship for the whole season ( He did a lot of high level Kart racing.), so the CEO came up with this race from the last row for $5 mil..
There is also their head of safety, Brian Barnhart, that didn't say it wasn't a good idea.

He was one of those drivers that would always talk to people. Good Guy Gone.

 

[xlr8r]

RIP Dan

This death has hit me harder than any other in my over 15 years of being a racing fan. So many things were wrong with this race and weekend in Las Vegas.

Ovals are an outdated way of racing. The USA is the only country in the world where high speed ovals are used for professional racing.

 

[JimG.]

The race was a bad idea...the 5 million prize for Wheldon was a bad idea too. He was racing for his driving life and wound up dead.

But I think that banning ovals is not going to happen. It is uniquely American and it is the preferred style for many American fans of both Indycar and NASCAR.

This was a horrible crash; I was watching the race and it literally turned my stomach. I knew Wheldon was dead on impact...nobody could survive that.

 

[Puck it]

The tub did it's job. It was completely intact. It was the contact of the cockpit to the catch fence. A canopy may have saved his life.

I have been in the pits for these cars at few races. These cars are amazing and it is hard to believe anyone can fit into the cockpits.

 

[drjeff]

The race was a bad idea...the 5 million prize for Wheldon was a bad idea too. He was racing for his driving life and wound up dead.

But I think that banning ovals is not going to happen. It is uniquely American and it is the preferred style for many American fans of both Indycar and NASCAR.

This was a horrible crash; I was watching the race and it literally turned my stomach. I knew Wheldon was dead on impact...nobody could survive that.

From a track design standpoint, what I STRONGLY feel needs to happen is that Speedway Motor Sports needs to STOP building the cookie cutter 1.5 mile medium/high banked tri-ovals!! Atlanta, Charlotte, Texas, Kentucky, Las Vegas! And to those tracks, they need to do something tomake them different! Change the banking in some turns, whatever! That layout produces the fastest speeds in Nascar racing (Atlanta) and that 225mphish pole speed for the Inday car series is insane.

Really emotional torn up about this. I was out in Vegas last week and where I was staying at the MGM Grand was one of the host hotels and they had promotional info all over the place, Dario Franchiti's car was in the lobby and then I was able to watch a ceremonial "race" that they had Thursday night on the Vegas strip from basically MGM Grand/NYNY upto Plannet Hollywood/Aria/Cosmopolitan ad back. Just a cool thing to see in person. And a tragedy for not just the Wheldon family, but for Indy car racing as whole. Since this season had both extreme highs, weird finishes, and a tragic ending

 

[deadheadskier]

Definitely sad.

Truthfully I'm kind of surprised there aren't more deaths in Indy or Nascar racing. I know the safety technology is amazing, but a crash at 200+ miles an hour seems extreme for any car to endure.

 

[SkiDork]

people are dancing around the actual cause of death but based on all the reports I've heard I'm guessing he was decapitated by the fence.

 

[Glenn]

A very sad day for racing. Looking at the still pictures is rough. Even with all the safety these days, racing can be pretty dangerous at times.

 

[drjeff]

people are dancing around the actual cause of death but based on all the reports I've heard I'm guessing he was decapitated by the fence.

Based on the picture out there of Dan being loaded into the medi-vac copter where one of the EMT's/Flight nurses is squeezing the ambu bag to attempt to keep oxygen flowing into his system, it atleast wasn't a full decapitation, but i'm guessing that his helmet took some serious impacts from that fencing the way that the cockpit of his car hit it. The cockpit/tun actually did its job and appreared atleast to have stayed intact very well (as they're designed to do), and the way that the drives sit way down in the tub, there's actually very little of their helmet that is above, and hence exposed, the cockpit/tub. That combined with the use of the harness and HANS device and there's not much movement of the head/body possible.

The biggest issue, as with any crash, be it of a race car or a passenger car, or even a bike is the g-forces the body faces as it goes through the deceleration from whatever speed to 0 in a very short time

That was just a horrific crash. And while I do hope that the Indy cars come back to Vegas, I would think that they'll either have to use some type of restrictor plate to limit the top speed and/or reduce the number of cars on the track and maybe make some changes to the track itself. Since that combo of speed + the number of cars + the track isn't safe for the Indy cars

 

[bvibert]

Even with all the safety these days, racing can be pretty dangerous at times.

Racing is always dangerous. Sure it's safer than it was years ago, but continuously pushing machines to their limits will always involve some amount of danger.

 

[kartski]

The tub did it's job. It was completely intact. It was the contact of the cockpit to the catch fence. A canopy may have saved his life.

I have been in the pits for these cars at few races. These cars are amazing and it is hard to believe anyone can fit into the cockpits.

I've heard the Air Box / Roll Bar broke loose in the fence exposing the helmet. The car was covered, it's probably evidence. After Senna in Italy, this could be in the courts for years.

 

[ALLSKIING]

Open wheel cars are 10 times more dangerous then a stock car. You don't see cars lift of the ground like that in NASCAR very much at all. NASCAR also has brought there speeds down and have done a great job with safety. There will always be danger and they can still makes things safer but since DE died in what 2003? Nothing has happened in NASCAR at all.

 

[Nick]

It's amazing they are so safe at all... the cars come apart like paper mache when they touch anything. RIP.

 

[ski stef]

rip those pics are crazy...very sad

 

[bvibert]

It's amazing they are so safe at all... the cars come apart like paper mache when they touch anything. RIP.

All the extremities break off fairly easily, but the cockpit is actually pretty tough.

 

[Nick]

All the extremities break off fairly easily, but the cockpit is actually pretty tough.

Yeah I mean it blows my mind in general how safe you could be though with an exposed cockpit in any way. The fact that there is a 20 car pileup at 200 mph

 

[o3jeff]

Scary crash and it was only a matter of time.

Like others have said, all the safety stuff did its job, but with all the lightweight parts on those cars at 200+ mph the fact is there really is not much safety, just a mess once the tires touch something.

 

[mondeo]

It's amazing they are so safe at all... the cars come apart like paper mache when they touch anything. RIP.

They don't come apart like paper mache at all, that's by design. With carbon structures, you gain the ability to fine tune the strength of the material in different directions. Instead of absorbing energy through yielding like metal does, the safety structures in CF cars are designed to break away when dangerous forces are seen, exposing fresh structure to continue to break away and absorb more of the impact.

Should be an F1 nose crash test, but I'm posting YouTube in the blind from work: