2011 IndyCar Series

[Ryan Soucy]

Only Vegas is dangerous?

California (Moore)
Charlotte (3 fans died...)
Texas (Brack's legs, Silvestra's fire)
Indy (Zampedri's career, Tony Renna)
Disneyland (D. Hamilton's legs)
Michigan (3 fans died, Sullivan and Fittipaldi's careers)
Lausitzring (Zanardi's legs)
Sanair (Mear's legs)

Compared with road/street:
Krosnoff and Gonzalo Rodriguez killed in the last 15 years, last one 12 years ago
Serious injuries to Will Power at Sonoma, Foyt at Road America

I'm sure I've missed some on both sides of the argument, but I wouldn't miss the ovals at all if they went away. They're all either pack races where its more of a lottery, or a fuel strategy race. Hoo boy...

 

[Koray Can]

It was not a freakish one-off. As soon as I heard about Wheldon I thought of Ryan Briscoe's crash in 2005 Chicagoland:

His car also went airborne and turned into a fireball. IIRC his recovery took a year.

I'm not the biggest fan of ovals, but I watch Nascar. They do get airborne sometimes but they have roll cages and walk away from almost anything. I don't see what having an open wheel car adds to racing on ovals.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

@Ryan: You forgot Paul Dana.

But, in the IRL itself, there has only been four fatalities. You also included many CART/Champcar crashes, without taking in account the bad CART/Champcar crashes on road courses over the same years. IndyCar didn't move away from oval-track racing until 2005, and they only had three road course races in 05 and 06. So, it's a pretty easy logic to see that there has been more Indy accidents on ovals, because they have raced 100+ more races on ovals than non-ovals!

No, I think Paul Tracy said a wise thing regarding the catchfence. That the catchfence was the big problem in this accident, and, with something else there, the cars would not be ripped apart, and it would be safer.
Instead of banning/quitting something, why not look into what can be done regarding the safety on those tracks.

@Koray: I'm reffering to what Tracy said, I think that would be a wise thing, not only for IndyCar, but also for NASCAR.

 

[William Levesque]

I drove on the Sanair Trioval

 

[Luke McVicar]

Tbh Paul danas accident was definetly a one off and would of resulted in a death in any car(exact same as mark porters death at Bathurst in a v8 supercar).

And Greg moores incident resulted in run off in that area which in it self that incident was also a bit freakish.

 

[Eric Parker]

Being from Indianapolis I can't say get rid of all ovals. It just isn't in my blood. But having said that, I think there are steps that can be taken to mitigate the risk. Perhaps a restriction on banking. To me a track that every driver can run flat out is a little dull. It takes the driver out of the equations to a degree. I would rather see shorter ovals and road races personally. Let the big track be Indy and the other ovals smaller. But I am a bit biased, I prefer road racing. I would really like to see another race run during the year for the Indy cars on the road circuit the F1 cars use to run. To me that would be better money spent than just watching cars turn left.

 

[Block]

To even suggest that they get rid of Indy cars on ovals is ridiculous. It was a freakish unfortunate accident. But just that, an ACCIDENT. Accidents will happen unfortunatly from time to time whenever human beings are involved in things, we are not perfect. Sure lessons need to be learnt from this accident but please don't let this ruin another form of motorsport. The death of Ayrton Senna signalled the end of proper Formula 1 racing. He would have been appalled at what happend to the sport he loved. F1 is only starting to recover from its slump thanks to some innotive regulation changes.

 

[Richard Coleman]

The drivers know the risks and they enjoy racing on the ovals. I've only ever heard them complain about the speed at Las Vegas.

 

[Luke McVicar]

banning ovals would be the equivalent of putting a tire chicane on eau rouge(in 1994 they did this because they clearly over reacted over sennas death).

things need to be done but common sence has to be priority when doing it.

 

[Juen-Jen Wang]

"Formula 1, I felt, was at an acceptable level but IndyCar was, and is, probably 20 years behind in terms of safety."

Ok.

#1. No, it's actually not. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Remember when Ralf Schumacher was seriously injured on a roval in 2004? Yeah how many IndyCar drivers walked out of similar wrecks either unscathed or close to unscathed? And Ralf was nowhere near the speeds that IndyCar's at when he had his crash at Indy. IndyCar drivers experience much worse wrecks than Ralf every oval race yet Ralf was the one that was seriously injured.

#2. When the hell did you care about the "dangers of IndyCar". If you were that fricking concerned why did you want until someone died to make a comment? Do you people not realize how unbelievably disrespectful you're being to Dan? Shame on all of you.

(Original Article: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/95508 )

Are 3 deaths in the last decade for IndyCar that shocking? Not really.

Hey, V8 Supercar had a few deaths. Remember Ashley Cooper (2007) and Mark Porter (2006).

Oh hey, how many people have died from Drag Racing this decade? John Lingenfelter (2002), Darrell Russell (2004), Michele Howard (2005), Eric Medlen (2007), John Shoemaker (2008), Scott Kalita (2008), Neal Parker (2010), Mark Niver (2010).

Oh hey what about Rally and Hillclimb? Three rally and hillclimb drivers have already died in this year alone. I'm not even going to bother looking up a list of rally and hillclimb fatalities of this decade.

Hey guys... here's an idea. Why dont we just ban racing. Seriously are we just realizing NOW that racing is dangerous?

Also:

But [Chris] Powell insisted that he was not told of any such concerns prior to the event.

"When drivers have concerns, I think 99 percent of the time those concerns are expressed to the sanctioning body," said Powell. "If those concerns were expressed in this instance, certainly it was not to me."

Yeah really good 20/20 hindsight bias everyone. Lets act smart and cool when someone's dead but not actually say much before the incident. Is this really the way to treat the tragedy of Dan's death? What about the deaths of other race car drivers like Cooper, Porter, and the countless Rally deaths? Way to brush off those deaths and claim the world with Dan's death

Shameful people. Absolutely shameful

 

[Chris Butcher]

When was the last driver death in Formula One?

1994.

And then you compare it to completely different kinds of motorsports?

Indy Has had 4 since then, enough said really.

The fact of the matter is it is more dangerous. I'm not saying he would have survived in a Formula One car - the likelyhood is he wouldn't have done if the cars sustained the same damage.

Motorsport is dangerous. Heck, there are signs around every track in Britain reminding the spectators of that.

The problem with IndyCar isn't the cars - it's the tracks. One mistake and you are in the wall. F1 is safer due to the combination of the advances in cars, and track safety. Formula One cars have been slowed down remember to improve safety, so now they will do "only" 200mph, compared to Indy's 225mph. But when you put 34 cars inches apart at 225mph for 2 hours - that is why Indy is more dangerous than Formula One.

Oh, and FYI - Ralf Schumacher hit the wall backwards at 180mph with a 90 degree angle to the wall. I.E sudden stop. You don't see many Indy crashes like that. Their crashes typically happen over a longer time, which therefore means lower G force. Indy drivers would have been similarly injured I suspect in a similar impact.

No one here is anti IndyCar. We'd just like to see it safer.

 

[Juen-Jen Wang]

The problem with IndyCar isn't the cars - it's the tracks. One mistake and you are in the wall. F1 is safer due to the combination of the advances in cars, and track safety. Formula One cars have been slowed down remember to improve safety, so now they will do "only" 200mph, compared to Indy's 225mph. But when you put 34 cars inches apart at 225mph for 2 hours - that is why Indy is more dangerous than Formula One.

Indy is definitely more dangerous but saying it is "20 years behind F1" is really unfair to IndyCar. There's a lot more deaths in IndyCar than there are in F1. Definitely (one happens ever 4-5 years it seems). But it's more of the case of the nature of oval racing as just being inherently more dangerous. To paint IndyCar as this archaic series is really uncalled for imho. My point is that IndyCar looks bad compared to F1. But IndyCar looks golden compared to Drag Racing. So comparing apples or oranges is counterproductive imho but it seems to be the trend atm

Oh, and FYI - Ralf Schumacher hit the wall backwards at 180mph with a 90 degree angle to the wall. I.E sudden stop. You don't see many Indy crashes like that. Their crashes typically happen over a longer time, which therefore means lower G force. Indy drivers would have been similarly injured I suspect in a similar impact.

Is Ralf's crash not similar to Briscoe's crash?

 

[Chris Butcher]

Not really, that was still a glancing angle. But remember there you are comparing a 2011 car against a 2004 car.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Negative publicity is also publicity some will say. IndyCar was apart from the Indy 500 completely forgotten over here. Its sad that a casualty brings the sports back in the spotlights now.

I am sure that with the launch of the new car model for next year the safety will also be a lot better. Unfortunately dead and motorsport still go hand in hand and I think Dan knew that up front as well that his sport was dangerous.

The most deadly form of motorsport is still ordinary daily traffic.

 

[Juen-Jen Wang]

Not really, that was still a glancing angle. But remember there you are comparing a 2011 car against a 2004 car.

If the 2011 IndyCar is better at protecting drivers on the ovals than the 2004 F1 car then IndyCar isn't "20 years behind F1" in safety

Negative publicity is also publicity some will say. IndyCar was apart from the Indy 500 completely forgotten over here. Its sad that a casualty brings the sports back in the spotlights now.

I am sure that with the launch of the new car model for next year the safety will also be a lot better. Unfortunately dead and motorsport still go hand in hand and I think Dan knew that up front as well that his sport was dangerous.

The most deadly form of motorsport is still ordinary daily traffic.

Is that true? I mean would Dan's death make IndyCar lose more credibility in the eyes of the motorsports community in Europe? I think losing credibility is the last thing IndyCar needs when it's recovering from it's split (well besides people dying of course)

 

[Chris Butcher]

I didn't say that. Coulthard did.

 

[Craig Hume]

Open wheelers racing at such a high speed in such close company will inevitably lead to things like this. It could happen on a oval, it could just as well happen on a street track. The design of the cars must be looked in all open wheel formula's to stop this kinda thing from happening. Webber did a similar thing last season and also flipped the car. Luckily he stayed off the fence and went sliding into the tyres. But it could have been a different story if he hit the fence

 

[Juen-Jen Wang]

http://indiana.sbnation.com/racing/2011/10/19/2500112/mario-andretti-a-j-foyt-refute-assertions-that-indycar-should-leave

"I don't think Jimmie Johnson knows what he's talking about. He's never drove one, and he's pretty stupid to make a statement like that. You could say the same about stock cars. I've drove both, and I've been hurt real bad in both."

Thank you AJ and Mario...

 

[Craig Hume]

I am sorry, but who seriously cares about what team managers or ex drivers have to say. The most important and the only voice that matters is that of the drivers in the cars. So give them the voice to decide on what is best, seeing as their lives are the ones on the line

 

[Eric Estes]

Well, I give A.J. and Mario more credence than guys who have never driven winged cars on ovals (J. Johnson, Coulthard). Having said that, what the drivers decide to do will have an effect - I think Roger, Michael, and Chip will listen very much to their drivers and provide feedback as well, finally overcoming Bernard's Bull-Riding circus antics. There are still many variables to consider, including the new car.