Russian Roulette at the Vegas Bullring: R.I.P. Dan Wheldon

The entire racing world grieves with the Indycar Racing Series and Wheldon family over the tragic loss of driver Dan Wheldon in the horrific 15 car wreck that claimed his life on Sunday, October 16th.  Without a doubt, racing is dangerous under normal circumstances but it's even worst under the most precarious! Regardless of the need for ratings, "a great show"  or whatever reasoning comes together to consider precarious conditions, the utmost safety of everyone involved should prevail.

Ironically, Dan had spent a good deal of his "off time" without a ride this past year working on the new design that the Indycar Racing Series will debut next year. Wheldon had joked about being the "crash test dummy" for the new design all year but stated that the safety improvements were significant.

Las Vegas isn't called the "bullring" without good cause and precarious was an  understatement for Sunday's race with Indycar. Despite the concerns expressed by many drivers over the high speeds in excess of 225mph, and the potential for more aggressive driving too early on in the race, the race proceeded as usual only to end early in tragic chaos by Lap 13. Several drivers had expressed major concerns before the race began.

According to Oriol Servia, he said, "We all had a bad feeling about this place in particular just because of the high banking and how easy it was to go flat. And if you give us the opportunity, we are drivers, and we try to go to the front. We race each other hard because that's what we do. We knew it could happen, but it's just really sad."

And their worst fears came to pass quickly. On Lap 11, as one car got loose and squirreled into the path of another car, the unrecoverable chain reactions began the chain of events that would result in a melee disaster the likes of which Indycar hadn't seen in many years. "Big Ones" don't happen in Indycar like they do in NASCAR, but the "Big One" struck today like a shotgun blast and claimed 15 cars. Still with all the factors pre-staged in this race, it was like Russian Roulette because everyone knew something bad could happen, and so the one "bullet" (the "Big One" wreck) claimed the life of Dan Wheldon in it's aftermath on Lap 13.

Ryan Briscoe explained his view, "I'll tell you, I've never seen anything like it. The debris we all had to drive through the lap later, it looked like a war scene from Terminator or something. I mean, there were just pieces of metal and car on fire in the middle of the track with no car attached to it and just debris everywhere. So it was scary, and your first thoughts are hoping that no one is hurt because there's just stuff everywhere. Crazy."

With flaming debris flying everywhere, driver's described the track with dismay and horror at what they experienced. Danica Patrick gave her view. "It was like a movie scene which they try to make as gnarly as possible," said Patrick, who was making her final IndyCar start. "It was debris everywhere across the whole track. You could smell the smoke. You could see the billowing smoke on the back straight from the car. There was a chunk of fire that we were driving around. You could see cars scattered."

The race was red flagged and drivers just stood by their machines looking around at the nightmare scene as they realized several of their own were wrapped up in the wreckages. But, when the tarp covered the 77 car and the helicopter fired up to airlift Dan Wheldon out of the track, their worst fears were realized about one of their own. In the end, the race was capped with a tearful 5 lap salute to Wheldon by the drivers as teams stoodby on pitrow.  

 

Yet underlying all this was the gargantuan efforts of Indycar CEO, Randy Bernard  who strived to put this race on the map as a grand season finale. From renting the track to the $5 million dollar promotion for a driver to win the race from the last starting position that had been promoted all year long, Bernard worked out every detail to put on a great show. He even convinced the Las Vegas Strip to close in order to parade the cars in pre-race festivities, host a special Black Jack tournament and distirbute massive amounts of free tickets in order to insure a crowd to watch the Grand Finale of their schedule.  Desperately trying to revive sagging ratings, he even put his job on the line for it. Bernard had it all covered, including ABC-TV live coverage and promised the board for Indycar that he would tender his resignation if they didn't secure an .8 in the ratings.

Only Wheldon, who was without a ride for the season but slated to take Danica Patrick's next year when she vacated hers to move to NASCAR, had accepted the $5 million dollar promotional challenge. Naturally, Wheldon just wanted to race. As a racer, it's only natural that he wanted to be part of the bigger picture and part of a history making moment and challenge. After all, he WAS the Indy 500 winner, who could resist? As much as the media hyped about the "money deal," with racers, it's never all about the money.