These are the kind of days that everyone dreads.
The racing fan, especially the modern fan, is not exempt to this sentiment.
It is the major and inherent risk of this great sport we follow. Whatever your allegiance – be it NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula 1, or NHRA – it’s something that we take for granted. And like most things taken for granted, it will catch you at the worst possible moment and give you a gut check that will remain for the rest of time.
The strange part is, I wasn’t watching the IndyCar series finale Sunday afternoon.
I assumed it started at a later hour and I had to work. After clocking in at 4:01p.m., I checked my cell phone to see that there was a horrific crash. It was not just any crash, it sounded like it was the “Big One.” No two simple words can inspire so much fear in a group of people such as race fans.
Who knew that at the end of this Sunday, we would have witnessed the death of Dan Wheldon – one of racing’s greatest spokesmen and drivers, and the defending winner of the Indianapolis 500, was killed when his airborne car crashed open side first into the SAFER barriers.
Upon hearing this news, I felt a sense of irony and sadness.
Why irony? 12 years ago, Greg Moore – one of the sports great drivers – was killed in the last race of the season in an accident that was every bit as gruesome and heartbreaking as what happened Sunday.
Back in the 50′s, 60′s, and 80′s, this sort of thing was so commonplace that we just assume now that people back then were cold hearted.
But what made it better was the fact that the rarity of deaths in racing now makes then much more jarring to the senses as they did then. But considering the severity of such accidents, from that bygone era, it leaves us feeling relief that this doesn’t happen as much now.
Do you think it wasn’t as shuddering to those at the motor speedway back in 1960 to see Tony Bettenhausen car in flames on the other side of the front straightway fence during practice for the 500 that year with half the fencing wrapped around his car?
Do you think it was any less jarring for those who had the misfortune of witnessing the Gordon Smiley crash during qualifying for that 1982 500? Or for A.J. Foyt who won the 1964 500 after driving through the atomic bomb sized crash that took out Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald?
It wasn’t, and you can look at Foyt’s face in victory lane that year to see that it hurt just as much in 1964 as it does now.
Perhaps it’s the personal investment each of us makes now in our favorite drivers. The openness of the garage area in racing allows us to meet, greet, and learn more about the drivers than ever before. And if there was anyone who was the master of the meet and greet, it was Wheldon.
So, in a way, this one hurts the most. Not just in the way it happened, but just simply because it had happened at all.
Maybe the worst part about this is what might be going through the head of Dario Franchitti, the Scottish born driver, who was one of Moore’s best friends at the time of the crash, was also one of Wheldon’s best friends.
The crash was so massive – it took out Franchitti’s nearest competitors in the series championship. Essentially, his best friend’s death handed him the series title.
The ironic part of this all was that the spec the cars ran under was on its last day. Beginning the next season, there would’ve been a new car. A car that would or would not prevented this tragedy.
Guess who spent all year testing that particular car?
It’s a shame and a half that the man who had tested the car that would’ve made things safer for his fellow drivers, died in the car that the series had been desperate to get rid of.
Remember that last bit of information when you hear the parrot-like discussions about where is the safety in this sport? Why are these men driving so fast? This isn’t a real sport? etc.
Remember one thing, it takes a real man to drive a car the way Dan did. It takes a real man to step inside one of those cars.
And that yesterday, on October 17th, 2011, a man by the name of Dan Wheldon died doing what he loved the most, risk or not.
And I’m sure almost every driver in every series, deep down knows that that is the only way to go out if it comes to.
About the Author
