Anyone see the terrible accident at the Indycar race last night which claimed the life of British driver Dan Wheldon? Race was live on one of the Sky Sports channels last night.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/motor/indycar/story/2011-10-16/las-vegas-300-dan-wheldon-crash/50795256/1
Condolences to Wheldon's family - he left a wife and 2 very young children.
I'm annoyed that this happened and I think there are a number of questions to be asked re: contributing factors.
Wheldon had raced very little this season and was added to the back of the field because there was a $5m prize for any part-time/amateur driver who could win the race. The race field was bumped up to 34 cars, when they usually have c.10 less than this - had a lot of inexperienced drivers driving borrowed 'spare' cars. Accident was triggered by 2 of these drivers coming together. Whats worse is that this was the last race to use a particular model of car that is several years old and long past it sell buy date - I would guess that some of the cars in the field have previously sustained damage and were cobbled together. The car Wheldon raced in the Indy 500 earlier this year was supposed to be badly damaged in a subsequent race (with another driver driving). I wonder if it was the same car?
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/motor/indycar/story/2011-10-16/las-vegas-300-dan-wheldon-crash/50795256/1
Condolences to Wheldon's family - he left a wife and 2 very young children.
I'm annoyed that this happened and I think there are a number of questions to be asked re: contributing factors.
Wheldon had raced very little this season and was added to the back of the field because there was a $5m prize for any part-time/amateur driver who could win the race. The race field was bumped up to 34 cars, when they usually have c.10 less than this - had a lot of inexperienced drivers driving borrowed 'spare' cars. Accident was triggered by 2 of these drivers coming together. Whats worse is that this was the last race to use a particular model of car that is several years old and long past it sell buy date - I would guess that some of the cars in the field have previously sustained damage and were cobbled together. The car Wheldon raced in the Indy 500 earlier this year was supposed to be badly damaged in a subsequent race (with another driver driving). I wonder if it was the same car?