Racing Of The United States Variety

[Massa 0]

Yes, that was Texas. It's definitely a worry if the 2012 car is faster, like they wanted it to be (hell, they just opened the "speed records" debate for Indy...)...

You might be right about oval racing. I still think there's a place for tracks like Milwaukee, Loudon, Richmond, Iowa, etc.

But, if you look at attendance, these races are all being canceled not for safety, but because no one in the U.S. cares for that style of racing. So it may all be moot...probably going to end up with just Indy left de facto.

And then there's this, the kind of arrogance Jimmie Johnson displayed, just from the F1 world:

http://www.oversteertv.net/Formula1.html

It may be sincere, but it's just snotty. People outside the sport need to just stop talking. Their opinions hold weight to people who don't know the difference between a racing driver and a racing driver, who take it as gospel. Hell, the news cares more about Johnson's analysis than Tracy's or Bernard's or Andretti's in the U.S.

Every driver outside of Indy who gives their brilliant, "expert" plans, even if they say something I agree with, just loses my respect.

Off to go talk to some professional bowlers on Twitter to see what they say about concussions in the NHL now.

[HandyNZL 1]

Are not ovals as American as apple pie? Was it not IRL that consisted of only ovals in the early years?

I think, that no matter what you do, a car can still wreck, and a driver still be killed.

Taking them off an oval, is no safer than having them run on a road course with little run off and a concrete wall.

Each circuit has it's own inherent dangers.

However, the cars can be slowed down, if that is what it takes to make the event safer. Frankly, a spectator watching cars at 180mph is still going to get the same buzz and thrills as a race at 220mph. F1 originally slowed cars down with the grooved tyres and narrowed tracks (axle tracks, not circuit tracks), along with other efforts. Indy can do just the same thing...you can design speed out of a car, just as much as you can design speed into a car. And speed alone, a great race does not make.

I'm not so sure about taking the rear wing off will do anything, other than have the tail ends drifting out. Perhaps instead of taking the wing off, they should keep the road wings on...this is what happened to Wade Cunningham at the lottery race...he drew 2nd place on the grid, but as his oval car had been damaged too much in the first race, he was forced into the back up car setup for road courses. From memory, he was running near last within a lap and a bit because the car was just not fast enough...too much drag. And that is where they should head I feel. Add the drag and the cars will slow down.

[Rainmaster 7]

And then there's this, the kind of arrogance Jimmie Johnson displayed, just from the F1 world:

http://www.oversteer...t/Formula1.html

It may be sincere, but it's just snotty. People outside the sport need to just stop talking. Their opinions hold weight to people who don't know the difference between a racing driver and a racing driver, who take it as gospel. Hell, the news cares more about Johnson's analysis than Tracy's or Bernard's or Andretti's in the U.S.

Every driver outside of Indy who gives their brilliant, "expert" plans, even if they say something I agree with, just loses my respect.

Off to go talk to some professional bowlers on Twitter to see what they say about concussions in the NHL now.

Ignoring who is saying them for a moment, it seems to me a lot of those criticisms in the article have some truth to them (e.g. high speed nature of the circuit, tight circuit, number of cars competing etc). I've even seen you write roughly similar things I think. Maybe some of them are a little strongly put, and a little annoying to hear from people outside of Indy, and outside of America dare I say it, but it would unwise to write them off for those very personal reasons. Some of those drivers competed in Indy or similar, and they've all competed in high speed racing with all of its risks, and some of course in an era when loss of life was quite common so they've been there, done it, got the emotional scars and worked on safety. Many of them knew Wheldon. One of them has a son who competes in Indy. I guess my point is they have as much right to comment as anyone, and sometimes the best comments come from outside the "bubble" of the environment you're in (although I am sure in this case Indy and its relevant authorities are perfectly capable of improving on safety by themselves, and think everyone in F1 surely knows that too). It would also be quite odd if something like this happened and was completely ignored by the equivalent series' drivers across the pond. It would be even stranger if they all came out and said "Indy racing is really safe, the circuit was fine and the speeds were just brilliant for that layout, really great idea there". As you can tell, I don't really see the arrogance in the comments, but I am a stinking piece of Euro trash

Are not ovals as American as apple pie? Was it not IRL that consisted of only ovals in the early years?

I think, that no matter what you do, a car can still wreck, and a driver still be killed.

Taking them off an oval, is no safer than having them run on a road course with little run off and a concrete wall.

Each circuit has it's own inherent dangers.

However, the cars can be slowed down, if that is what it takes to make the event safer. Frankly, a spectator watching cars at 180mph is still going to get the same buzz and thrills as a race at 220mph. F1 originally slowed cars down with the grooved tyres and narrowed tracks (axle tracks, not circuit tracks), along with other efforts. Indy can do just the same thing...you can design speed out of a car, just as much as you can design speed into a car. And speed alone, a great race does not make.

I'm not so sure about taking the rear wing off will do anything, other than have the tail ends drifting out. Perhaps instead of taking the wing off, they should keep the road wings on...this is what happened to Wade Cunningham at the lottery race...he drew 2nd place on the grid, but as his oval car had been damaged too much in the first race, he was forced into the back up car setup for road courses. From memory, he was running near last within a lap and a bit because the car was just not fast enough...too much drag. And that is where they should head I feel. Add the drag and the cars will slow down.

I have an idea: don't put them on ovals or on tracks with little run off and concrete walls! Put them on those normal, safer tracks which have run off! Sorry, I can't resist a false dichotomy... But yes, if you want a fast race series it will always be inherently dangerous, but so is walking to the shops, yet we still use the pavement and the crossings rather than walk on the middle of the road (point is: accepting an inherent level of danger will always exist is not an argument for allowing obvious excessive/unnecessary risks to go unchallenged, such as running on certain types of tracks, for example).

[Massa 0]

We're complicated people.

We want ovals for our stock cars, midgets, modifieds.

But ovals for IndyCars?

The stands are empty and no one watches on TV. So apparently we don't enjoy that much.

The ovals will disappear; they already are in the process.

It just won't have anything to do with safety. Everything to do with a complete lack of interest in it...

...unfortunately, the knee-jerking to all the misinformation experts like Jimmie Johnson, Scott Speed, Anthony Davidson, etc. are so graciously sharing with all of us is only going to make that lack of interest worsen. Now people are going to avoid this stuff like the plague because some NASCAR and F1 guys are telling us to.

Unless we're really complicated people.

Or we're intelligent.

[HandyNZL 1]

Ignoring who is saying them for a moment, it seems to me a lot of those criticisms in the article have some truth to them (e.g. high speed nature of the circuit, tight circuit, number of cars competing etc). I've even seen you write roughly similar things I think. Maybe some of them are a little strongly put, and a little annoying to hear from people outside of Indy, and outside of America dare I say it, but it would unwise to write them off for those very personal reasons. Some of those drivers competed in Indy or similar, and they've all competed in high speed racing with all of its risks, and some of course in an era when loss of life was quite common so they've been there, done it, got the emotional scars and worked on safety. Many of them knew Wheldon. One of them has a son who competes in Indy. I guess my point is they have as much right to comment as anyone, and sometimes the best comments come from outside the "bubble" of the environment you're in (although I am sure in this case Indy and its relevant authorities are perfectly capable of improving on safety by themselves, and think everyone in F1 surely knows that too). It would also be quite odd if something like this happened and was completely ignored by the equivalent series' drivers across the pond. It would be even stranger if they all came out and said "Indy racing is really safe, the circuit was fine and the speeds were just brilliant for that layout, really great idea there". As you can tell, I don't really see the arrogance in the comments, but I am a stinking piece of Euro trash

I have an idea: don't put them on ovals or on tracks with little run off and concrete walls! Put them on those normal, safer tracks which have run off! Sorry, I can't resist a false dichotomy... But yes, if you want a fast race series it will always be inherently dangerous, but so is walking to the shops, yet we still use the pavement and the crossings rather than walk on the middle of the road (point is: accepting an inherent level of danger will always exist is not an argument for allowing obvious excessive/unnecessary risks to go unchallenged, such as running on certain types of tracks, for example).

Yep, that's why Monaco, Singapore, and Valencia should also be banned!!!!

[Massa 0]

Just saw Georgemaster's post.

I don't care if they make a suggestion. But when it's "don't run these tracks because the drivers aren't talented enough," which has been said and implied, or "our series is the model of safety" when it has just as many vulnerabilities, or "oh, yeah, I saw this coming, we all saw it coming," or "INDYCAR has done a poor job" when, in reality, I can think of four other drivers who very well could have died in that same wreck, and I can think of dozens of NASCAR and Indy drivers who'd be dead if what was then IRL and now INDYCAR hadn't pushed the SAFER barrier forward (and then let NASCAR take credit for; after all, WGAF when it's saving lives).

There's a way to say an opinion, and a way to be a douchebag. And I'm seeing a lot of douchebaggery in a lot of articles and quotes from a lot of people in a lot of forms of racing, even the American oval ones in NASCAR where there's no Eurotrash and xenophobes like me can find no wrong.

I think, and it's not their fault necessarily though they could be careful, the problem is only worsened in that the mainstream media just see "racing driver says this," reports it as THE solution, and now everyone's convinced by it. I know we had a lot of that with Jimmie Johnson's comments here...

It's rubbing a lot of people the wrong way, and maybe it shouldn't, but I have a hard time respecting what's being said if it can't be said respectably.

I don't want to, and perhaps I have, paint everyone outside of Indy racing with the same brush. There are people who aren't doing this the wrong way.

And I do think I'm a little ****y the FIA are getting involved, because I think they're ridiculous, and have so much power that whatever they find will become the solution, even if it's not a good one.

[Quiet One 15]

Yep, that's why Monaco, Singapore, and Valencia should also be banned!!!!

As long as we can keep Spa, Montreal, Suzuka and Interlagos I'm OK. All the rest are just fillers.

[Massa 0]

Just saw the reference to Piquet's wreck by one F1 personality.

Yeah, time stood still for 19 years. No HANS device, no SAFER barriers, no car improvements, nope, none at all.

Will Power's father says Will's been hurt on the ovals before and wants him to go to F1 (because, you know, you can just sign up on a waiting list and get an F1 drive like that). Power did have a very minor concussion at Iowa; he missed a total of zero races after passing Indy's extremely extensive exam to return (which says his concussion was really, minor; when Simona had hers, she was originally cleared, but Indy made sure to test a second time at random before the race weekend and she failed, knowing the unpredictable nature of concussions. So if Power came back for Toronto, which he did, it was really not major). Power did, however, have to sit out for months with a serious back injury...

...sustained at Infineon. A natural terrain road course with tons of run-off.

Wilson's out for the year with a back injury from August...from a freaking curb at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. I'll let you guess what kind of circuit that one is.

I like the way Beccy Gordon said it: "If they wanted NASCAR driver comments, [were] Robby, Tony, JPM, and Sam all unavailable?"

I'll say it another way...

...if you want to come in with your pretense, at least have some facts. I might take your opinion to mean something more than "well a driver died racing on an oval, so just never race ovals again, also IRL is inferior to F1/NASCAR because we have blah blah blah" if you even had a clue what you were saying.

Augh. That's enough from me. I'll do what I'm asking from them and shut up, too.

[Massa 0]

There is a rumor that Sam Schmidt Motorsports will close. Team manager Chris Griffis passed unexpectedly last month, and now Dan Wheldon was killed at the wheel of one of their cars.

Would be a sad thing to see.

[Autumnpuma 0]

Are not ovals as American as apple pie? Was it not IRL that consisted of only ovals in the early years?

I think, that no matter what you do, a car can still wreck, and a driver still be killed.

Taking them off an oval, is no safer than having them run on a road course with little run off and a concrete wall.

Each circuit has it's own inherent dangers.

However, the cars can be slowed down, if that is what it takes to make the event safer. Frankly, a spectator watching cars at 180mph is still going to get the same buzz and thrills as a race at 220mph. F1 originally slowed cars down with the grooved tyres and narrowed tracks (axle tracks, not circuit tracks), along with other efforts. Indy can do just the same thing...you can design speed out of a car, just as much as you can design speed into a car. And speed alone, a great race does not make.

I'm not so sure about taking the rear wing off will do anything, other than have the tail ends drifting out. Perhaps instead of taking the wing off, they should keep the road wings on...this is what happened to Wade Cunningham at the lottery race...he drew 2nd place on the grid, but as his oval car had been damaged too much in the first race, he was forced into the back up car setup for road courses. From memory, he was running near last within a lap and a bit because the car was just not fast enough...too much drag. And that is where they should head I feel. Add the drag and the cars will slow down.

Spoken like a road-racer. [Georgian_accent] Ovals, son, are a dif'rent animal. [/Georgian_accent] It's not just the speed, it's the nature of racing on ovals that makes it too dangerous. The banking gives the cars the ability to drive flat-out the whole race. Hell, they never touch anything but their highest gear except on pit stops. Because of the downforce levels, they can run side-by-side at +150mph at distances to each other that are closer than a road race.

Consider how potentially dangerous it is on a road course when two drivers go side-by-side. If you tap the guy next to you, he'll spin or you'll launch yourself over him by connecting tyre-to-tyre. Consider that most road course turns are taken at around 60mph. Now think of all the horrific stuff that can happen at that low speed, with ample run-off.

To compare, take the typical road course corner speeds and double them. Now put the cars three-wide, less than half a meter between them and three deep. That's a car on each side of you, two in front and maybe three in back of you. All racing at +120mph. All so close you can count the bolts on their gearboxes. Put them on a track with concrete all around. Now one driver in that mob touches the tyre of another. That is MUCH more dangerous for no real reason. As Eric says, very few people are watching open-wheel ovals anyway, so why have them when the danger is so great?

It kills me to realize that open-wheels need to come off ovals, but they do. Keep Indy for tradition's sake, but toss all the rest of them out.

[HandyNZL 1]

Mike, I grew up watching dirt track ovals, midgets, TQ's and sprintcars...what you lot call Outlaws. I've been following CART since before Mansell even saw one, let alone squished his behind into. I've watched many accidents on both oval, road, street and dirt track. I've been witness to a guy cartwheel his sprintcar along the track, go into the catch fence and a piece of the muffler hurtle through the air, and embed itself into the skull of the drivers wife sitting in the crowd. She died. Imagine how the driver felt...

America has run open wheelers on ovals since Adam was a baby, and have had no more fatalities than any other form of motorsport. Some forms, like F1, have only been lucky not to have a fatality since 1994 - and on that particular weekend, there were two deaths, and one near death. F1 cars are inherently not all that much safer now than they were then. Webber could so easily have been killed when he flew to Mars and back after launching over Heikki's back wheels. Schumacher nearly had his head decapitated at Abu Dhabi last year.

Motorsport as a whole is dangerous, and people will die. When someone does, a light is always shone on the sport that it would rather not have. Just the same as when you hear of someone dying whilst mountaineering, or sailing solo around the world.

The cars can run safely on ovals...they have many many many many times before. They can also crash and someone get killed. But the exact same thing can be said for circuit racing. It was only last year that a young Surtees was killed in a lower grade formula car. And stock cars / touring cars are no safer. Mark Porter was killed at Bathurst a few years back after what looked like not a huge shunt, but enough of one for his head to be smashed against the roll cage.

I would not imagine that ovals suddenly disappear next year, nor the year after. The 2012 car already addresses many of the concerns you mention in your post, including the touching of tyres. The addition of acyrlic panels instead of catch fences does have merit, though I wonder just how expensive and fail proof they would actually be...not to mention the cleaning bill...

There will be one or two changes come out of this, but it won't be a massive change, more it will be subtle and hardly noticed. If I'm wrong, then Steph will run naked through the streets of Chicago...

[Autumnpuma 0]

Mike, I grew up watching dirt track ovals, midgets, TQ's and sprintcars...what you lot call Outlaws. I've been following CART since before Mansell even saw one, let alone squished his behind into. I've watched many accidents on both oval, road, street and dirt track. I've been witness to a guy cartwheel his sprintcar along the track, go into the catch fence and a piece of the muffler hurtle through the air, and embed itself into the skull of the drivers wife sitting in the crowd. She died. Imagine how the driver felt...

America has run open wheelers on ovals since Adam was a baby, and have had no more fatalities than any other form of motorsport. Some forms, like F1, have only been lucky not to have a fatality since 1994 - and on that particular weekend, there were two deaths, and one near death. F1 cars are inherently not all that much safer now than they were then. Webber could so easily have been killed when he flew to Mars and back after launching over Heikki's back wheels. Schumacher nearly had his head decapitated at Abu Dhabi last year.

Motorsport as a whole is dangerous, and people will die. When someone does, a light is always shone on the sport that it would rather not have. Just the same as when you hear of someone dying whilst mountaineering, or sailing solo around the world.

The cars can run safely on ovals...they have many many many many times before. They can also crash and someone get killed. But the exact same thing can be said for circuit racing. It was only last year that a young Surtees was killed in a lower grade formula car. And stock cars / touring cars are no safer. Mark Porter was killed at Bathurst a few years back after what looked like not a huge shunt, but enough of one for his head to be smashed against the roll cage.

I would not imagine that ovals suddenly disappear next year, nor the year after. The 2012 car already addresses many of the concerns you mention in your post, including the touching of tyres. The addition of acyrlic panels instead of catch fences does have merit, though I wonder just how expensive and fail proof they would actually be...not to mention the cleaning bill...

There will be one or two changes come out of this, but it won't be a massive change, more it will be subtle and hardly noticed. If I'm wrong, then Steph will run naked through the streets of Chicago...

OK

[Massa 0]

The comments keep coming from outside Indy racing...must resist...I don't mind if you are respectful about it and don't pretend to be an expert...but some of these F1 and NASCAR guys are really just using it to kick Indy while it's down and talk about how superior their series is when, in reality, I could tell you many safety vulnerabilities in both F1 and NASCAR. Both have overblown reputations. "Oh, look at Kubica's wreck, he lived." And so did Mike Conway and Will Power and Simona de Silvestro and Dario Franchitti in wrecks similar to Wheldon's over the last few years; Bräck and Hamilton were far worse off in similar accidents, but they too raced again, even if it took years. And then someone died. Imagine that. If you change one centimeter, one mph, one little breeze, one bad roll of the dice, well, he doesn't. People think it's all a testament to safety. It's just a testament to chance. I don't belittle what the FIA have done to improve F1, or what NASCAR have done to improve themselves, but I also don't like to see drivers get so comfortable with their sport, and talk down to another sport...one that Jimmie Johnson, for example, might be interested to know actually invented the SAFER barrier and, if they didn't race on ovals (as Johnson suggests), they never would have bothered as they never would have needed it, and Earnhardt would not have been NASCAR's last fatality. Just a total display of douchebaggery in the F1 and NASCAR paddocks by so many personalities (not all, definitely not all of them). It's one thing to suggest, it's another thing to surround your suggestion with misinformation (i.e. the ones who say it's a mostly oval series, the ones who reference Piquet's wreck from twenty years ago at Indy, etc.) and disrespect.

Some of these guys (namely Coulthard and Warwick, but not just them) are absolute asswipes. No respect for these pretentious pieces of unsympathetic ****. There's a part of me that just wants to take so many quotes from so many people and just tear them all apart with actual, but I'm not sure there'd be much use in it. After all, IndyCar's just a stupid, wild, ignorant mess of unqualified idiots while F1 and NASCAR are the pinnacles of everything ever.

I love seeing A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti call them out for it; Foyt called Johnson "stupid." It made me smile.

[Massa 0]

Will Power:

http://www.npr.org/2011/10/18/141477176/will-power-talks-about-safety-of-indy-car-racing

Former NASCAR driver Jimmy Spencer:

http://nascar.speedtv.com/article/spencer-how-we-in-nascar-cope/

And I certainly like his final note:

I can’t close without expressing my disgust with the “ambulance chasers” who have come out this week. I’ve heard from so many different media outlets wanting to interview me about Dan’s death, but the problem I have with these requests is they’re coming from media outlets who do not cover racing the rest of the year. Where were these guys when IndyCar arrived in Las Vegas for their championship weekend? Where were they when something positive happened in the series during the course of the season? The practice of covering racing only when someone dies makes me sick. It shows disrespect for our sport, our fans, and most importantly, the ones we lost.

It's the same disrespect with all these guys from outside Indy who are talking as experts, and talking with pretense. Glad Spencer set it straight.

[Rainmaster 7]

Yep, that's why Monaco, Singapore, and Valencia should also be banned!!!!

If you read the words, that wasn't the idea put forward!!!

Just saw Georgemaster's post.

I don't care if they make a suggestion. But when it's "don't run these tracks because the drivers aren't talented enough," which has been said and implied, or "our series is the model of safety" when it has just as many vulnerabilities, or "oh, yeah, I saw this coming, we all saw it coming," or "INDYCAR has done a poor job" when, in reality, I can think of four other drivers who very well could have died in that same wreck, and I can think of dozens of NASCAR and Indy drivers who'd be dead if what was then IRL and now INDYCAR hadn't pushed the SAFER barrier forward (and then let NASCAR take credit for; after all, WGAF when it's saving lives).

There's a way to say an opinion, and a way to be a douchebag. And I'm seeing a lot of douchebaggery in a lot of articles and quotes from a lot of people in a lot of forms of racing, even the American oval ones in NASCAR where there's no Eurotrash and xenophobes like me can find no wrong.

I think, and it's not their fault necessarily though they could be careful, the problem is only worsened in that the mainstream media just see "racing driver says this," reports it as THE solution, and now everyone's convinced by it. I know we had a lot of that with Jimmie Johnson's comments here...

It's rubbing a lot of people the wrong way, and maybe it shouldn't, but I have a hard time respecting what's being said if it can't be said respectably.

I don't want to, and perhaps I have, paint everyone outside of Indy racing with the same brush. There are people who aren't doing this the wrong way.

And I do think I'm a little ****y the FIA are getting involved, because I think they're ridiculous, and have so much power that whatever they find will become the solution, even if it's not a good one.

Fair enough. I can see what you mean. I don't like commenting on it myself as I don't watch/know enough about Indy (although I still feel a connection to it, as hey, racing is racing. And I am interested in the safety arguments/ideas about this). Nevertheless this will probably be my last post on it, as I have a bad feeling about where this is heading..

Spoken like a road-racer. [Georgian_accent] Ovals, son, are a dif'rent animal. [/Georgian_accent] It's not just the speed, it's the nature of racing on ovals that makes it too dangerous. The banking gives the cars the ability to drive flat-out the whole race. Hell, they never touch anything but their highest gear except on pit stops. Because of the downforce levels, they can run side-by-side at +150mph at distances to each other that are closer than a road race.

Consider how potentially dangerous it is on a road course when two drivers go side-by-side. If you tap the guy next to you, he'll spin or you'll launch yourself over him by connecting tyre-to-tyre. Consider that most road course turns are taken at around 60mph. Now think of all the horrific stuff that can happen at that low speed, with ample run-off.

To compare, take the typical road course corner speeds and double them. Now put the cars three-wide, less than half a meter between them and three deep. That's a car on each side of you, two in front and maybe three in back of you. All racing at +120mph. All so close you can count the bolts on their gearboxes. Put them on a track with concrete all around. Now one driver in that mob touches the tyre of another. That is MUCH more dangerous for no real reason. As Eric says, very few people are watching open-wheel ovals anyway, so why have them when the danger is so great?

It kills me to realize that open-wheels need to come off ovals, but they do. Keep Indy for tradition's sake, but toss all the rest of them out.

This makes sense to me.

Mike, I grew up watching dirt track ovals, midgets, TQ's and sprintcars...what you lot call Outlaws. I've been following CART since before Mansell even saw one, let alone squished his behind into. I've watched many accidents on both oval, road, street and dirt track. I've been witness to a guy cartwheel his sprintcar along the track, go into the catch fence and a piece of the muffler hurtle through the air, and embed itself into the skull of the drivers wife sitting in the crowd. She died. Imagine how the driver felt...

America has run open wheelers on ovals since Adam was a baby, and have had no more fatalities than any other form of motorsport. Some forms, like F1, have only been lucky not to have a fatality since 1994 - and on that particular weekend, there were two deaths, and one near death. F1 cars are inherently not all that much safer now than they were then. Webber could so easily have been killed when he flew to Mars and back after launching over Heikki's back wheels. Schumacher nearly had his head decapitated at Abu Dhabi last year.

Motorsport as a whole is dangerous, and people will die. When someone does, a light is always shone on the sport that it would rather not have. Just the same as when you hear of someone dying whilst mountaineering, or sailing solo around the world.

The cars can run safely on ovals...they have many many many many times before. They can also crash and someone get killed. But the exact same thing can be said for circuit racing. It was only last year that a young Surtees was killed in a lower grade formula car. And stock cars / touring cars are no safer. Mark Porter was killed at Bathurst a few years back after what looked like not a huge shunt, but enough of one for his head to be smashed against the roll cage.

I would not imagine that ovals suddenly disappear next year, nor the year after. The 2012 car already addresses many of the concerns you mention in your post, including the touching of tyres. The addition of acyrlic panels instead of catch fences does have merit, though I wonder just how expensive and fail proof they would actually be...not to mention the cleaning bill...

There will be one or two changes come out of this, but it won't be a massive change, more it will be subtle and hardly noticed. If I'm wrong, then Steph will run naked through the streets of Chicago...

I think you are still confusing danger and risk, which are facts of life (in this case racing), as an argument for not giving proper regard to safety measures and risk management. Saying something that can be made safer will always be inherently dangerous, may well be true, but is irrelevant imo. In many aspects of life you have a risk element that is managed, e.g., in motorway driving, as a driver you take precautions yourself to drive properly, hope for the same from others, and expect from the relevant authority that the road will in a suitable condition. People still die on motorways, yet funnily enough we still take and expect those precautions. Why should the attitude to a racing series, for our entertainment, be any different (an appeal to tradition, "it's always been like this", isn't good enough)? The best answer I can think of is that it is easier to rationalise the risks someone else is taking and being subjected to.

The examples you give are really unfair comparisons too, the closest one is the Surtees example, but even that was nothing like this incident. Surtees was a freak accident. Sometimes, you cannot learn anything from a freak accident (hey, a plane could drop out of the sky, after all) but after the Surtees incident wheel tethering was improved, I think. When a fatality next happens in F1 (and eventually it surely will because, as you say, "motorsport is dangerous.."), it may be something that is obvious which nobody has paid enough attention to, but the chances are it will be a mix of incredible circumstances and misfortune (probably something hitting the helmet area) that couldn't have been foreseen or reasonably prevented*; a freak accident. Does anyone really think Las Vegas was one of those? I don't see how it was. It was an accident which only required a small mistake from one driver to unfold, at those speeds and that proximity it would always trigger a huge crash for others behind, and it was only a matter of chance if someone lost their life or not in the ensuing chaos. That seems to me the nature and risk of running in such close proximity (like Puma wrote), and although Dan was so terribly unlucky, the risk of a big accident doesn't seem so small as to write it off as being down to chance. There is definitely something to be learned and I am sure that will happen.

*However, the FIA has and is investigating c#ckpit canopy materials.

[Massa 0]

Fair enough. I can see what you mean. I don't like commenting on it myself as I don't watch/know enough about Indy (although I still feel a connection to it, as hey, racing is racing. And I am interested in the safety arguments/ideas about this). Nevertheless this will probably be my last post on it, as I have a bad feeling about where this is heading..

I think you are still confusing danger and risk, which are facts of life (in this case racing), as an argument for not giving proper regard to safety measures and risk management. Saying something that can be made safer will always be inherently dangerous, may well be true, but is irrelevant imo. In many aspects of life you have a risk element that is managed, e.g., in motorway driving, as a driver you take precautions yourself to drive properly, hope for the same from others, and expect from the relevant authority that the road will in a suitable condition. People still die on motorways, yet funnily enough we still take and expect those precautions. Why should the attitude to a racing series, for our entertainment, be any different (an appeal to tradition, "it's always been like this", isn't good enough)? The best answer I can think of is that it is easier to rationalise the risks someone else is taking and being subjected to.

The examples you give are really unfair comparisons too, the closest one is the Surtees example, but even that was nothing like this incident. Surtees was a freak accident. Sometimes, you cannot learn anything from a freak accident (hey, a plane could drop out of the sky, after all) but after the Surtees incident wheel tethering was improved, I think. When a fatality next happens in F1 (and eventually it surely will because, as you say, "motorsport is dangerous.."), it may be something that is obvious which nobody has paid enough attention to, but the chances are it will be a mix of incredible circumstances and misfortune (probably something hitting the helmet area) that couldn't have been foreseen or reasonably prevented*; a freak accident. Does anyone really think Las Vegas was one of those? I don't see how it was. It was an accident which only required a small mistake from one driver to unfold, at those speeds and that proximity it would always trigger a huge crash for others behind, and it was only a matter of chance if someone lost their life or not in the ensuing chaos. That seems to me the nature and risk of running in such close proximity (like Puma wrote), and although Dan was so terribly unlucky, the risk of a big accident doesn't seem so small as to write it off as being down to chance. There is definitely something to be learned and I am sure that will happen.

*However, the FIA has and is investigating c#ckpit canopy materials.

I know nothing about Indy, too. I still post.

I don't think it was a freak accident. But I would look first at the changes we know are coming - the 2012 car that was already in place since 2010 and debuted in August with Wheldon at the wheel (Dallara have said the car will be named after Dan, as he did all the test work initially).

You can see it in both road course and oval trim, and I think what stands out most is the bodywork around the rear wheels. These cars are no longer effective ramps for front-to-rear impact or front-to-side impact like they were. The chance of cars flying through the air like four did will be lessened when they have nothing to launch off of...

...now, that may open another can of worms, that if a car going 220 crashes into the back of a car going much slower, rather than going up and over, we now have to have confidence in the "safety cell" the driver sits in as the energy is all going to go right to the driver and back injury becomes a big concern (back injuries always have been in Indy; that was a huge vulnerability with the 2003-2011 chassis and everyone knew it).

Admittedly, the oval car might get completely chopped up and re-made if what Tagliani said Bernard said is 1) true and 2) something that will actually happen.

So I guess my point is...

...I have no answers, but what I think is that, we need to look at what we can continue to do to the 2012 car (which is supposedly safer; that's so general and I'd love specifics and I'd really love proof).

I do think the truth is in the middle of the irrational "SOMEONE DIED WE CAN NEVER DO THIS AGAIN" and the equally irrational "that's racing." I guess the first step is figuring out - were the changes made for 2012 prior to Las Vegas already enough to solve the problems, or did IndyCar not foresee something like this ever happening and need to re-assess?

I guess I favor making changes to cars over making changes to the tracks they run. Reduce speed by reducing down force and I think you could end up with 1) better racing on-track and 2) better safety. Break up the packs. We have the unfortunate position of playing on NASCAR's playground; they don't build tracks for Indy racing anymore. They're built for stock cars. Lots of banking, and as fast as they want because the stock cars handle as such that the driver always needs to brake and shift into the corners and really wrestle the car. But with the IndyCars, these tracks produce terrible racing and, more importantly, these terrible accidents. Which isn't to say road and street courses are safe, or shorter ovals are safer, but...you get the point. We want oval racing as part of the sport, but the ovals aren't built for our cars. I'd rather see our cars be built for the tracks if the tracks can't be built for our cars, rather than just abandon the tracks.

Though to counter myself: I don't like the talking down on our drivers from others, but the reality is that it may be more dangerous to take downforce away. There are people who are licensed to drive IndyCars who probably shouldn't be, and those drivers, even if they needed to brake, probably wouldn't. Driver experience, talent, qualifications, etc. had NOTHING to do with Wheldon's wreck. But it could have something to do with future tragedies IF they make the cars too hard to drive with too much speed...

...and in that case, maybe they do need to look at the tracks they're going to.

On a separate note, it's incredibly sad to watch a lot of IndyCar fans on other forums and sites using this to just move their agenda forward. The same people who wanted to front-engined, wing-less "big midgets" on short ovals are now using this as proof as to why they should do that. The same people who wanted us to go back to the Panoz DP01 on a schedule of street circuits with a couple road courses are now using this as proof as to why they should do that. I'm not surprised that 1) Indy fans just want to go back to the past rather than forward and 2) are using this as validation for their opinions rather than using it to find new ones, but it's still bothersome.

[Massa 0]

Here's where I worry:

We need some leadership right now. I know Mr. Bernard is very distraught and I respect that. But while the media piles on the bad press, and everyone's forming all sorts of ideas, and rumors are swirling, IndyCar has continued to say they will speak when they are ready.

I would like to see them speak before this gets out of hand.

Currently, there are rumors of some fighting within. I know it was divided as far as those who wanted the race to continue, and those who did not. There are rumors, purely rumors, that one faction of drivers and owners may be trying to end Indy racing on ovals altogether.

Factions in this sport scare me. This sport's never been strong enough to keep them together. It's never had a leader, when all along, the teams have run the show here.

I'd like to believe Mr. Bernard could be that leader, and if there are any doubts to dispel, and any facts to present in counter of the misinformation being spread, I would hope to see him do so soon.

[Massa 0]

Confirmed: FIA and ACCUS will investigate with IndyCar.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out the rest of the story:

FIA and ACCUS say what needs to be done, pull sanctioning of races if Indy doesn't do it.

So I hope whatever they say is sound and not knee-jerk, misinformed ****. Because what they say is what's going to go.

You all know I'm very negative about the FIA, so I'm sure it's not as bad as I make it seem, but I hate to know we're at the hands of a body that's left us alone all along and really doesn't know anything about the U.S. racing scene. I just don't trust them to get it right, and I hate the fact that, if they get it wrong, we have to follow it. The FIA are not the brilliant wonderful safety champions they tell you they are, in my opinion. They're just a bunch of pompous snots...and unlike a lot of the ones who are just talking, the FIA can actually do whatever they want.

Admittedly, I know very little of ACCUS. I know they sanction motor racing in the U.S. unless it's a "World Championship," and then the FIA sanctions it. But I also know they let Indy and NASCAR self-sanction, and then there's IMSA, and stuff. I frankly know little of them but I hope they know a lot about Indy racing...and a lot about not overreacting.

[HandyNZL 1]

If you read the words, that wasn't the idea put forward!!!

Fair enough. I can see what you mean. I don't like commenting on it myself as I don't watch/know enough about Indy (although I still feel a connection to it, as hey, racing is racing. And I am interested in the safety arguments/ideas about this). Nevertheless this will probably be my last post on it, as I have a bad feeling about where this is heading..

This makes sense to me.

I think you are still confusing danger and risk, which are facts of life (in this case racing), as an argument for not giving proper regard to safety measures and risk management. Saying something that can be made safer will always be inherently dangerous, may well be true, but is irrelevant imo. In many aspects of life you have a risk element that is managed, e.g., in motorway driving, as a driver you take precautions yourself to drive properly, hope for the same from others, and expect from the relevant authority that the road will in a suitable condition. People still die on motorways, yet funnily enough we still take and expect those precautions. Why should the attitude to a racing series, for our entertainment, be any different (an appeal to tradition, "it's always been like this", isn't good enough)? The best answer I can think of is that it is easier to rationalise the risks someone else is taking and being subjected to.

The examples you give are really unfair comparisons too, the closest one is the Surtees example, but even that was nothing like this incident. Surtees was a freak accident. Sometimes, you cannot learn anything from a freak accident (hey, a plane could drop out of the sky, after all) but after the Surtees incident wheel tethering was improved, I think. When a fatality next happens in F1 (and eventually it surely will because, as you say, "motorsport is dangerous.."), it may be something that is obvious which nobody has paid enough attention to, but the chances are it will be a mix of incredible circumstances and misfortune (probably something hitting the helmet area) that couldn't have been foreseen or reasonably prevented*; a freak accident. Does anyone really think Las Vegas was one of those? I don't see how it was. It was an accident which only required a small mistake from one driver to unfold, at those speeds and that proximity it would always trigger a huge crash for others behind, and it was only a matter of chance if someone lost their life or not in the ensuing chaos. That seems to me the nature and risk of running in such close proximity (like Puma wrote), and although Dan was so terribly unlucky, the risk of a big accident doesn't seem so small as to write it off as being down to chance. There is definitely something to be learned and I am sure that will happen.

*However, the FIA has and is investigating c#ckpit canopy materials.

I'm not confusing danger and risk at all, George. All I am saying is that the cars have run on ovals for decades, and whilst, yes there have been some fatalities, there have also been many events without a single yellow flag. And I was saying that the same can be said for circuit racing, and pointed out two forms of circuit racing that have had recent, mid- to high-profile deaths in the last five years...one in open wheelers, the other in a touring car tin-top.

Just as you mention driving on the motorway is dangerous, we all still do it, measuring that risk to danger ratio in our heads, driving in pitifully safe vehicles where the push for cheap manufacture and trendiest colour far outweighs the needs to provide something safe for the consumer.

At least race cars are made as safe as they possibly can be, yet, as it witnessed over and over, sometimes they are just not safe enough...which in the end, often boils down to freak chance.

In all this, I'm with Eric...he can see that you don't need to make a knee jerk reaction and dissolve oval racing.

And with the majority of the concerns currently being voiced by the ill-informed already covered by the 2012 chassis for Indy, I can't see what else save not racing, can be done. Afterall, they didn't stop racing at Bathurst after Mark Porter died there, nor did they stop racing on circuits in Britain after Surtees death.

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

I know nothing about Indy, too. I still post.

I don't think it was a freak accident.

I do watch Indy and have watched Champcar for years. My take is that the 2012 car will help. However... Dan Wheldon's and Will Power's cars launched after hitting the side of the cars rather the wheels. Jeff Krosnoff's fatal accident in Toronto was a classic wheel-touching-wheel accident - this one was different.

The issue was too many cars on too narrow a circuit.

Deaths will always occur in motor racing - nature of the beast. They have and will happen again. Even in supposedly "safe" F1.

IndyCar officials made a mistake by allowing extra inexperienced entrants and the track was too narrow and they were bunched up too much. Fact is that most oval racing runs just fine and whilst there are crashes people generally walk away. Given the unique nature of the events and the $5M bonus, you had a few fast drivers making their way to the front from the back of the pack through lots of similarly matched back markers - with all that bunching an accident was inevitable and if it was going to happen, it was never going to be pretty. Thing is 14 of the 15 walked away with no major injuries, so safety can't be that bad.

So, bring in 2012 car, avoid doing massive fields of cars unless on an Indianapolis style circuit and accept that crashes will happen and deaths will occur.

Banning it is not the answer - the drivers know what they are letting themselves in for; oval racing makes for much more exciting races and Danica should remain and do more photo shoots for FHM (!)

[Massa 0]

I actually watched Champ Car and IRL and now watch IndyCar. I'm just an idiot anyway.

I think the freak part of Wheldon's accident is that he hit at the one angle at the one speed at the one place in the one position with the one force out of infinite combinations where you don't survive. Will Power, Pippa Mann, and J.R. Hildebrand in the same wreck hit at others and lived. Simona de Silvestro hit at another at Indy and lived. Kenny Bräck and Davey Hamilton hit at others and returned years later to race, though they were seriously injured.

So no, it's really not as dangerous as people think. There's stuff down to chance. Not the fact the accident happened; it was bound to. But the fact it was fatal. The same way any accident from F1 or NASCAR or Le Mans or wherever could have one minor thing about it changed and...

But. It's also not an excuse to do nothing at all. They don't need an oval aerokit until May. So it can't hurt to re-assess the one they have and be 100% certain that what's been done is the best that can be done.

I guess the debate is, the one IndyCar is actually having and not the one about canceling ovals which, other than LVMS, isn't on the table...is do we make it so that when these accidents do happen, the driver has a very very very very very very high chance of surviving, or do we make it so that these accidents just don't happen?

I'd argue we already have the former and have it even more with the 2012 car as-is, personally. So now I'd look at the second part...I wouldn't necessarily do anything, but I'd look at it.

[Massa 0]

Finally a respectful opinion:

http://planetf1.com/driver/18227/7251214/Stewart-Wheldon-s-death-a-wake-up-call

Not saying I agree with it, or disagree with it, but finally some respect.

Indy driver Jay Howard called Jimmie Johnson a "prick." So now they've just opened a load of nonsense with all the talking they do. Johnson back-tracked and said that he meant they "shouldn't run on certain ovals," which wasn't what he said...but that's how it goes.

And then we have this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/othersports/autoracing/indycar-ceo-randy-bernard-series-must-get-answers-from-investigation-into-dan-wheldons-death/2011/10/19/gIQApk3yyL_story.html

Bernard declined Wednesday to discuss the safety questions surrounding Las Vegas, saying he preferred to keep the focus on Wheldon this week.

This is going to be a big moment for Mr. Bernard when next week comes. He's always declined to discuss and to handle racing-related issues. I understand his postponement out of respect and to help clear the potential for knee-jerking, so I do not fault him at all. Just curious to see which direction he and the staff he's chosen are going to take when taking directions hasn't been common recently.

“I think people really have to forget about (the blame game),” Montoya said. “Now with the social media and everything anybody’s opinion really counts. And I think the only opinion that really matters right now is the one where we worry about Dan and his family. Let’s let IndyCar deal with their problems.”

Montoya gets it.

[Massa 0]

Randy Bernard is using Trackforum of all places to get ideas of how to make IndyCar safety. God help us all. A man pretending he's a CEO taking advice from people pretending to be engineers. Can we just pretend open-wheel racing never happened in America outside of modifieds, supers, midgets, and sprints? Blah.

I like Bryan Herta's take: NASCAR doesn't race at Long Beach because the cars aren't designed for street courses. Why does IndyCar run on NASCAR one-and-one-halfs? U.S. racing landscape is controlled by NASCAR. You have to play on their playground, unless you want to do super-unsuccessful track rentals like Milwaukee (ignorning the events of the race: Vegas was also a track rental; 40,000 free tickets were given away, 24,000 people showed up)...

...or you can just be logical and stop running ovals outside of the 500 if there are no ovals to be run. Fact: they do the pack racing **** at Fontana and Michigan in the IndyCars. So it's not just 1.5-milers. And you know that "more horsepower, less downforce" idea every likes because of the source, not the content?

Yeah. You'll lose pack racing. But some of the guys in IndyCar really don't belong there, sorry to say, and now you go back to a day when you get single-car wrecks leading to fatalities, rather than fifteen car wrecks. Not sure I like either option. Maybe you can sell me on "same power, less downforce," but then again, I like NASCAR enough that I just watch NASCAR to get NASCAR. Indy needs an identity, road racing's more popular than ovals for open-wheel cars in the U.S. (this is a proven fact on attendance and television viewership of Indy's races, F1 races, and even ALMS races though that's not open-wheel).

You know who else likes road racing a lot?

Younger audiences (18-34). A lot of the growth in road/street circuit viewership has been with 18-34s. Something about racing in the streets is "cool" and "edgy," while oval racing is for the fat, fun, and fifty crowd, apparently.

So I'm not sure we even need to talk safety. If we just talk business we'd be off the ovals outside of Indy since the ovals are massive failures regardless of promotion type (whether they leave it to the tracks or Our Savior Randy Bernard does it himself; they all end up getting scrapped after one year), while some of the new street and road races have been hailed as big successes (Birmingham and Baltimore).

And guess what?

If you get off the ovals, you can make a damn fine car/engine package specialized for road and street racing, making those races actually a lot of fun to watch. And if you promote that properly, you'd be able to make up for the 12 fans you'd lose if you cut oval racing because a series with an identity that does what it does and does it well, rather than a series that tries to do everything and leaves no one very satisfied, is going to work better.

Maybe.

[Massa 0]

Jeremy Mayfield was arrested on meth charges.

Do you think this hurts his lawsuit against NASCAR about them lying about his drug test he failed for, guess what, meth.

Do you think his lawsuit was dead anyway when they began the "let's throw **** at the wall and see what sticks" approach. Do you think they may have left a huge hole: "NASCAR's test was a false positive caused by Adderall and Claritin-D" was their first claim, their second was "an independent test taken immediately after NASCAR's second test came back negative." So if Mayfield's prescription/OTC drugs were giving him false positives, but then he had a negative test...uhh...yeah, oops.

Do you think I know what a question mark is.

Coincidence: both drivers sponsored by 360 OTC, which you may guess was some shady over-the-counter medication, are suspended from NASCAR for failed drug tests, with Tyler Walker being the other alongside Mayfield.

Best of luck to Jeremy getting his **** together. Sad, of course. What's pathetic is how much in denial he is about his problems.

[Massa 0]

2012 IndyCar stuff, team-by-team:

Newman/Haas Racing

Engine: 99% certain on Honda

Drivers: Oriol Servià (2) and James Hinchcliffe (06/6) are expected to return, some people say Sébastien Bourdais if Hinchcliffe moves on

Sponsors: Telemundo will return with Servià; Sprott expected back with Hinchcliffe

Team Penske

Engine: Chevrolet

Drivers: Hélio Castroneves (3) and Will Power (12) confirmed; Ryan Briscoe (6) TBD; Power may miss start of season with injury

Sponsors: Rotation for Hélio as in 2011 with SKF joining the fun; Verizon back with Power; no sponsors for a third car

Panther Racing

Engine: Chevrolet

Driver: J.R. Hildebrand (4)

Sponsors: National Guard

KV Racing Technology

Engine: Chevrolet

Drivers: Tony Kanaan (?) confirmed; Takuma Sato (?), E.J. Viso (?), Justin Wilson (?), Alex Tagliani (?) and more rumored

Sponsors: GEICO expected with Kanaan...drivers of the other cars will bring their own

Andretti Autosport

Engine: Chevrolet

Drivers: Marco Andretti (26) and Ryan Hunter-Reay (28) confirmed; Dan Wheldon was to drive the GoDaddy.com car that may now be driven by Justin Wilson, Ryan Briscoe, James Hinchcliffe, or any other free agent that the sponsor approves

Sponsors: RC Cola on the 26. No word on what's coming back to the 28. Obviously GoDaddy.com on what may be the 7 or 27.

Chip Ganassi Racing

Engine: Honda

Drivers: Scott Dixon (9), Dario Franchitti (10), Graham Rahal (38), and Charlie Kimball (83) all confirmed

Sponsors: Target, Service Central, and Novo Nordisk

A.J. Foyt Enterprises

Engine: Honda

Drivers: The 14 will get a new driver, and a second car could happen with $. Bertrand Baguette and Justin Wilson only names mentioned.

Sponsors: ABC Supply Co and whatever the driver bring

RLL Racing

Engine: Very likely Honda

Drivers: They want Justin Wilson

Sponsors: No idea

Dale Coyne Racing

Engine: He doesn't want the Lotus but he might have to suck it up

Drivers: Sébastien Bourdais would like to be full-time in the 19...

Sponsors: The 18 gets a driver sponsor, the 19 donates to Boy Scouts of America for a tax write-off for Coyne

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing

Engine: Lotus?

Drivers: They don't have any idea

Sponsors: Same as drivers

Conquest Racing

Engine: Lotus

Driver: $$$

Sponsor: $$$

Sarah Fisher Racing

Engine: Honda

Driver: Ed Carpenter (67)

Sponsor: None yet

Sam Schmidt Motorsports

Engine: Honda

Driver: Simon Pagenaud (77)

Sponsor: TBA, but the deals are done

HVM Racing

Engine: Lotus

Drivers: Simona de Silvestro (78), could be a second car, maybe Justin Wilson if it's the Lotus works team

Sponsor: Entergy returns with Simona, Lotus on-board, Simona's working on another mid-range sponsor

Bryan Herta Autosport

Engine: Honda...?

Driver: Alex Tagliani (98) and Sébastien Bourdais (98) seem to be the main candidates

Sponsor: William Rast, CURB/Big Machine, Bowers & Wilkins...maybe?

Other:

China Racing is soliciting Antônio Pizzonia over Twitter for a ride...seems legit.

Esteban Guerrieri is soliciting the Argentinian government to sponsor him.