RIP Dan Weldon

Sadly Dan Weldon lost his life in an accident in the USA's Indy Racing League (IRL) of USA. On teh Cicago Raceway Park ont eh last race of teh season.
Very bad day for everyone involved. and it was unreal watching it live on TV.

He was an IRL champion and winner of the indyanapolis 500 2 times.

These guys are insane drivers that race in the fastest motor cars in the motor racing genre, reaching speeds of 220Mph avreage per lap at Chicago Raceway.
IRL is the fastest racing on earth - Faster than F1. (Only Drag racing goes faster)

My thoughts and prayers to his family.
RIP Dan.

manu.da

I concur, Dan and other like him put their lives on the line every time they race for our entertainment, and it's a sad day when such an accident takes one.

Well, Brazil has big trauma when it comes to accidents in racing sports. We lost Ayrton Senna in May 1st, 1994, at the Tamburello turn, San Marino Grand Prix, Formula-1. 3-time World Champion with a long career still ahead and for some the best F-1 pilot ever.

I was just a kid at the time, but I saw how bad it feels and still hurts all brazlians today... the whole country stopped, he was an idol.

I remember IRL cars were able to reach 400km/h at some circuits a few years ago and almost every year, eventually, one pilot was fatally injured. Without thinking much I can remember Alessandro Zanardi accident (lost both legs, still races tho) Greg Moore and Paul Dana, in IRL. That's very sad

RIP Dan Wheldon, RIP them all.

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When driving was driving and changing gear wasn't pressing a lot of buttons, Senna won 1991 GP in Brazil with 2 gears only in the final part (1st and 6th) and almost passed out in the cockpit to finish the race:



This really marked my life sry for offtopic

this has been on our news a lot because he was british. but indy is not very much followed here so most people outside of motor racing had no clue who he was. which is a shame because it seems he was a real talent.

He was a real Talent and one of the reasons that he wasn't so known in his country was cause he went to the US very young to race.

Sadly, and i saw a lot of reporters talking about this... is that this was expected to happen some day. Tracks with 1/2 km with 34, yes 34, cars speeding up 350 km/h..... one accident....15 cars involved.... wasn't this expected? I believe so.

It's very sad that Dan passed like this, but as his father said, '' He passed doing what he loved ''. Worst than that is that he left a wife and 2 kids very young, the younger with 7 months...

All the thoughts and prays to this Family!

Ty Alex for the walk down memory lane. I too remember watching those accidents on TV. I have been watching F1 and IRL, CART racing for as long as I can remember. My dad was into them and I watched them along with him.

Ventil you are partly correct. Some people have been complaining that alot of the ovals are not designed for the IRL cars and that the cars need to be clipped. (slowed down by rules)

I remember the commentators were saying before the race that Chicago is the fastest track they were to race on this year for the IRL. Where they reach speeds of 220 Mph (350kph). Interestingly if you watch the crash you can see there were about 3 cars that were totally demolished in the crash. Both the other 2 drivers were ony minor injuries, One a sprained hand, and the other seemed OK but now it looks as though his spine has a fracture in it or something in his back damaged. Compared to Weldon's injurioes.

I think if you look at the crash critically, Dan did not slow down at all. So basically he was full impact in his crash, whereas the other guys were slowing down enough that the Cars saftey equipment did there job properly.

Even some of the drivers when it was announced they were racing in Chicago said its a very dangerous track for indycars. And it was very silly to race so many like that at once.

Unfortubnately as is the way of much of life, we only ever learn from what has been and not what could have been. IRL and the rest of the motoring world has learned a valuable lesson from this accident.

Hopefully this can save someone else from a similar fate.

RIP again. glhf all.

Yea, I've been watching F-1, Indy/CART and Stock Cars since I was a kid too, mostly because Senna was pretty much of a national idol for us.

Sadly, as you said, we only learn from our mistakes after they happen. After Senna died, F-1 pilots demanded more safety and the cars went through major adaptations, circuits don't have sand/grass 'exits' (dunno the word in english for the part that was supposed to slow cars down and protect pilots) sidelines anymore - now only asphalt ones so pilots can brake, and the format of some circuits have changed as well. Too bad Tamburello turn wasn't banned and eliminated earlier. [NOTE: when Senna died, he was the GPDA president (pilots association for safety) and always fought for better conditions for pilots, so the subject became much more evident with his death].

I heard Las Vegas Circuit wasn't supposed to host an IRL race because it's too dangerous, so why don't pilots step up and say "NO we won't race?" Unfortunately, 99,9% of times money speaks louder... for pilots, engineers, sponsors, everyone.

Obviously, it's not worth it.

Obviously...