antidisestablishmentarianism: Methinks his wife needs some comforting.
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Isn't that what pit crews are for?

Lith: antidisestablishmentarianism: Methinks his wife needs some comforting.
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Isn't that what pit crews are for?

I wouldn't mind getting into her pit...

Simple....take the wings off the cars (or severly reduce their size/efficiency) when they go to the mile and a half tracks (or whatever distance the high-banked tracks are)....they are forced to slow down in the corners and won't run nearly as fast on the straights....It puts the driver back, somewhat, in control.

chevydeuce: Simple....take the wings off the cars (or severly reduce their size/efficiency) when they go to the mile and a half tracks (or whatever distance the high-banked tracks are)....they are forced to slow down in the corners and won't run nearly as fast on the straights....It puts the driver back, somewhat, in control.

How about retards just stop watching cars turn left or right 2000 times in a row and call it a race.

Take the people out of the cars and drive by remote.

What a showboat Wheldon is. This past weekend was supposed to be all about Danica. Her last race, her winning the race, her leaving the Indy car trash in the dust for many 20 to 34 place finishes in NASCAR. I think he got his head ripped off on purpose just to upstage Danica. She should be royally ticked at him.

Lith: chevydeuce: Simple....take the wings off the cars (or severly reduce their size/efficiency) when they go to the mile and a half tracks (or whatever distance the high-banked tracks are)....they are forced to slow down in the corners and won't run nearly as fast on the straights....It puts the driver back, somewhat, in control.

How about retards just stop watching cars turn left or right 2000 times in a row and call it a race.

SOOOOOO much this......

Go that way really fast, if something gets in your way, turn

any other questions.

Sunday's pile-up was almost as tragic as when Billy Martin wrecked.

Lith: chevydeuce: Simple....take the wings off the cars (or severly reduce their size/efficiency) when they go to the mile and a half tracks (or whatever distance the high-banked tracks are)....they are forced to slow down in the corners and won't run nearly as fast on the straights....It puts the driver back, somewhat, in control.

How about retards just stop watching cars turn left or right 2000 times in a row and call it a race.

THIS.

NASCAR already has the market locked for rednecks that wanna see racing in a circle (oval).

Driving is a blood sport. People die. I get it. However, the last minnit add on of 5 million to any driver who won Vegas made it crazy time. Read the post comments of Castroneves and one other, name escapes me. That track was not made for 3 wide balls out racing bs. Which is what they had. They're lucky more didn't die.

chevydeuce: Simple....take the wings off the cars (or severly reduce their size/efficiency) when they go to the mile and a half tracks (or whatever distance the high-banked tracks are)....they are forced to slow down in the corners and won't run nearly as fast on the straights....It puts the driver back, somewhat, in control.

Keep the wings, close down the restrictor plate openings. Drivers are paid to push the envelope. It's what they do. Yes, it sucks but then, people don't die. Choices. make them.

Lt. Cheese Weasel: the last minnit add on of 5 million to any driver who won Vegas

That is not even remotely close to what was actually going on.

chevydeuce: Simple....take the wings off the cars (or severly reduce their size/efficiency) when they go to the mile and a half tracks (or whatever distance the high-banked tracks are)....they are forced to slow down in the corners and won't run nearly as fast on the straights....It puts the driver back, somewhat, in control.

The wings are there for good reason. They provide downforce to the car so the car can grip the road better. You take the wings away, the car will bounce through the turn which usually results in the car losing control and going straight up into the wall. And what's the point of racing when you're restricting your car's potential speed and power? It's not even worth racing at that point and from a fan's point of view, definitely not worth watching.

This kind of thing happens in racing. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that it's an incredibly dangerous sport but the drivers assume that risk when they go racing. It's as simple as that.

And for the people that say racing is just "taking left turns all day", I have one word. Basketball.

back and forth
back and forth
shoot the ball
back and forth
ZZZZzzzzzzz

Ed_Severson: Lt. Cheese Weasel: the last minnit add on of 5 million to any driver who won Vegas

That is not even remotely close to what was actually going on.

Well, splain it to the class Mr. Andretti.

Make em race golf carts?

Las Vegas Indy, 300 drivers had safety concerns, That's alot of drivers, Lou.

Lt. Cheese Weasel: Well, splain it to the class Mr. Andretti.

It's pretty simple. Dan Wheldon would have won $2.5 million for himself and $2.5 million for a fan if he had won. Nobody else in the field was involved at all. And it was hardly last minute.

Lt. Cheese Weasel: Ed_Severson: Lt. Cheese Weasel: the last minnit add on of 5 million to any driver who won Vegas

That is not even remotely close to what was actually going on.

Well, splain it to the class Mr. Andretti.

ROFL no need to get shiatty about it texan. If you'd paid even a little attention you'd know how it went,

I was working at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca when it happened. The mood at the track definately took a sad turn.
Get rid of the banked ovals damn it.
/yes I have to mention the sponsors
//Yamaha, Piloti, Robert Talbott, English Ales, etc...

Nothing To See Here: Las Vegas Indy, 300 drivers had safety concerns, That's alot of drivers, Lou.

It was madness.

WhoIsWillo: If you're driving anything at 220 miles an hour and you're not concerned about fiery crashes, than you're doing it wrong.

If your career requires you to regularly drive at 220 miles per hour, and you express concerns about safety on a track when otherwise you never express similar concerns, something is wrong with the track.

WhoIsWillo: If you're driving anything at 220 miles an hour and you're not concerned about fiery crashes, than you're doing it wrong.

The danger? Well, of course. But you are missing a very important point. I think if any of us imagined - really imagined - what it would be like to go into a tree at 150 miles per hour we would probably never get into the cars at all, none of us. So it has always seemed to me that to do something very dangerous requires a certain absence of imagination.

Lt. Cheese Weasel: chevydeuce: Simple....take the wings off the cars (or severly reduce their size/efficiency) when they go to the mile and a half tracks (or whatever distance the high-banked tracks are)....they are forced to slow down in the corners and won't run nearly as fast on the straights....It puts the driver back, somewhat, in control.

Keep the wings, close down the restrictor plate openings. Drivers are paid to push the envelope. It's what they do. Yes, it sucks but then, people don't die. Choices. make them.

Indy-style open-wheel has always been the most dangerous form of racing, but honestly that is what grew the sport. Do you think the masses flocked to Indy in May for the drama of watching cars make 60 mph parade laps? Should they just replace drivers with drones and make it a glorified video 200 mph game? No one would care.

Dan was not the 1st, and he won't be the last. But he died living HIS dream.

Indy 500 deaths (just the 500)

puffy999: WhoIsWillo: If you're driving anything at 220 miles an hour and you're not concerned about fiery crashes, than you're doing it wrong.

If your career requires you to regularly drive at 220 miles per hour, and you express concerns about safety on a track when otherwise you never express similar concerns, something is wrong with the track.

This whole thing was a clusterfark from the moment it was announced the season finale would be at LVMS. You do not put 34 cars on a mile and a half D oval - there should have been no more than 27 cars on that track - it is simply too short a track for an Indy 500 sized field. Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a 2.5 mile long flat oval. An Indy sized field on a 1.5 mile track is a straight out recipe for disaster.

Combine a too large field with turn banking that allows the cars to run flat out for the entire race and again, it's a clusterfark. All it takes is one rookie on the track to get nervous, slow up and the field runs him over like a confused squirrel on the interstate. Add into the mix a hot, slick track and what happened was a couple of rookies touched wheels, slowed up and it swallowed up everything behind them.

I'll give this one to the now defunct CART series - in 2001, when preparing for the Firestone 660 at Texas Motor Speedway, the drivers reported that because of the speed and banking on the track, many had come close to blacking out in practice. About two hours prior to the scheduled start of the race, CART officials canceled the race because of safety concerns.

There are still people trolling Fark race threads? I mean, isn't it 2011? Don't you basement-dwellers have other hobbies, like fapping to Goddess Bunny vids?

EducatedBum: The wings are there for good reason. They provide downforce to the car so the car can grip the road better. You take the wings away, the car will bounce through the turn which usually results in the car losing control and going straight up into the wall.

"Better" is the key word there. It's not as if taking the wings away will result in cars driving like they're on ice. Those cars could probably pull a good 1.5 g without wings. But if you remove the downforce, the drivers will necessarily slow down to make the corners. Now, if the cars are porpoising through the corners, that's a track problem, but running at a different speed could reduce it.

Lt. Cheese Weasel: Keep the wings, close down the restrictor plate openings. Drivers are paid to push the envelope.

There was no envelope pushing here. The cars were already flat out and bunched up all the way around, regardless of line. There was maybe a one percent difference between the fastest and slowest cars on track (P34 was losing about a second every four laps to P1). Reducing the power would result in the cars bunched up and flat out all the way around at a slower speed. You're not removing the danger, though, because the danger is not the high speed, the danger is cars running flat out and bunched up all the way around*. And yeah, the speed makes things worse when things happen, but lowering power only makes things happen at a slower speed. It doesn't prevent things from happening in the first place.

Reducing downforce (grip) would result in a larger difference between first and last (because some drivers suck more than others) while reducing potential racing lines. It doesn't even have to be much; there's not a huge drop between straightline and cornering speed at Indy, but you can see how, except for (re)starts, the cars are pretty much forced into a single groove, and a higher line is almost always slower than the normal one. It forces the cars into more of a string instead of a bunch, and the slower drivers are noticeably slower, spreading the field out fairly rapidly.

* This goes for NASCAR, too, but since car-to-car contact is relatively less dangerous in closed wheel racing, the dangers are masked somewhat.

Ed_Severson: Lt. Cheese Weasel: Well, splain it to the class Mr. Andretti.

It's pretty simple. Dan Wheldon would have won $2.5 million for himself and $2.5 million for a fan if he had won. Nobody else in the field was involved at all. And it was hardly last minute.

I recall it as May or June?

I take the point though: Lot of field fillers back there racing 3 wide.

Quasar: Dan Wheldon, who was 33, leaves behind his wife Suzi and two young sons. He was 33.

I wish this article mentioned how old he was.

Paraphrased from the race thread (sorry, can't link, farking from mobile):

"He wasn't even 30."

And he wasn't!

/RIP Dan.

MFAWG: Ed_Severson: Lt. Cheese Weasel: Well, splain it to the class Mr. Andretti.

It's pretty simple. Dan Wheldon would have won $2.5 million for himself and $2.5 million for a fan if he had won. Nobody else in the field was involved at all. And it was hardly last minute.

I recall it as May or June?

I take the point though: Lot of field fillers back there racing 3 wide.

Don't know that they were "field fillers" - as an IndyCar fan, I recognized every name in the field. Was there inexperience in the field? Yes. But the nature of LV qualifying meant that championship contenders were starting mid-pack.

Also, Randy Bernard offered the $5M "bounty" to a maximum of 5 non-regular IndyCar drivers - Travis Pastrana was going to do it before he got hurt this summer, and Kasey Kahne wanted to but Rick Hendrick said no. Once Bernard didn't get any real interest outside of that, the rules of the "bounty" were relaxed a bit and that's why Wheldon was, sadly, a part of it.

Victoly explained my thinking very well....make the "drivers" DRIVE...not just mat the throttle and hold on....which is exactly what killed Wheldon....

That type of car belongs on a Grand Prix track.

WhoIsWillo: If you're driving anything at 220 miles an hour and you're not concerned about fiery crashes, than you're doing it wrong.

If you are thinking about it you will never win. Race drivers aren't wired like normal people.

So, who won the race, or was it cancelled after the wreck? I tried looking for the results via google, but every site just talks about the wreck. Some even have the story under Sports/NASCAR...wtf?

I'm pretty sure Tony Kanaan was in P1 when it was called, but speedtv.com says the race was not scored. Indycar.com doesn't list anything for it.
Think they just tossed this one.

@Gunderson

crotchgrabber is right. Scoring reverted to results at end of Kentucky.

Gunderson: So, who won the race, or was it cancelled after the wreck? I tried looking for the results via google, but every site just talks about the wreck. Some even have the story under Sports/NASCAR...wtf?

The race was called after the wreck. The remaining cars/drivers did 5 laps in memory of Dan Wheldon.

Gunderson: So, who won the race, or was it cancelled after the wreck? I tried looking for the results via google, but every site just talks about the wreck. Some even have the story under Sports/NASCAR...wtf?

It was stopped. Many of the drivers would not have been able to continue - Franchitti and Canaan were both sobbing, and you can't drive at 220mph with your head full of grief and blurred vision from tears.

Praise Cheesus: You do not put 34 cars on a mile and a half D oval - there should have been no more than 27 cars on that track - it is simply too short a track for an Indy 500 sized field.

I did some math in one of the other threads. I figure the middle twenty cars were running within about forty car lengths at the time of the crash. Given that the initial contact came from about the middle of that pack, I'll let you draw your own conclusions about how many were too many.

Energy Fools The Magician: MFAWG: Ed_Severson: Lt. Cheese Weasel: Well, splain it to the class Mr. Andretti.

It's pretty simple. Dan Wheldon would have won $2.5 million for himself and $2.5 million for a fan if he had won. Nobody else in the field was involved at all. And it was hardly last minute.

I recall it as May or June?

I take the point though: Lot of field fillers back there racing 3 wide.

Don't know that they were "field fillers" - as an IndyCar fan, I recognized every name in the field. Was there inexperience in the field? Yes. But the nature of LV qualifying meant that championship contenders were starting mid-pack.

Also, Randy Bernard offered the $5M "bounty" to a maximum of 5 non-regular IndyCar drivers - Travis Pastrana was going to do it before he got hurt this summer, and Kasey Kahne wanted to but Rick Hendrick said no. Once Bernard didn't get any real interest outside of that, the rules of the "bounty" were relaxed a bit and that's why Wheldon was, sadly, a part of it.

I could have used that other railbird expression: DNMers.

I recognized most of the names too, including a couple that haven't turned a wheel in at least 6 months, some even longer.

All they were there to do was make a better 'Show'. Nothing wrong with that on the surface, but it didn't work out so well in practice.

Just remember: Safety is for pussies.

Given the recent state of affairs in the IRL, I could already imagine how some of those 'safety concern' meetings went with execs prior to the green flag.

Concerned Driver 1: We have some issues with the speeds on this track, and our ability to create separation in the field at those speeds.

Concerned Driver 2: I feel the same way.

Concerned Driver 3: I also agree with my other two colleagues. I mean there could be a serious accident, or far worse if we allow this race to continue without modification.

IRL Exec 1: WHAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. WHY Y NO LIKE THE TRACK?

IRL Exec 2: But our (non-existent) ratings!

IRL Exec 3: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

IRL Exec 4: There will be no changes to the race as currently planned. STFU GBTW. The amount of money we'll make off advertising will more than cover the 'tragic' loss of life, and potential injuries incurred during this event (and think of the ratings).

I'm just paraphrasing of course...

chevydeuce: Victoly explained my thinking very well....make the "drivers" DRIVE...not just mat the throttle and hold on....which is exactly what killed Wheldon....

By that logic, there is no horsepower limitations and the drivers will figure it out.....stupid.