Quote:
Originally Posted by Pharmacist
Very sad  A reminder that despite significant progress, there is still a lot to be done in terms of safety of the drivers. |
Unfortunately the IRL has been quite negligent when it comes to driver safety this year as far as their officiating is concerned (think back to New Hampshire where they restarted the race in the rain.) Many of the drivers warned of the dangers of the race following the first test, but they went ahead with it anyways. You just can't run these cars in NASCAR restrictor-plate style packs on smaller, tighter tracks at 220+ mph. Not when you've got so many inexperienced oval drivers and fully exposed wheels... it's a recipe for disaster.
That said, there IS a new car coming next year for the IRL with much more emphasis on driver safety. Looks a little funky, but after what happened today I couldn't care less what it looks like as it should really help to keep the drivers safer...
What's ironic is that Dan Wheldon was the guy doing almost all of the testing for the new car. :/
Here's Dan at Mid-Ohio earlier this year with the new road course chassis:
And here's the new oval chassis which should really help with preventing that front-to-rear wheel contact that sends the current cars flying:
Again, I just can't stress enough how much of a genuine good guy Dan was. He will be sorely missed!