Rahal Letterman driver killed in practice

[sports.espn.go.com]

Rookie Paul Dana was killed during practice this morning. The race will go on as scheduled, but Dana's teammates Danica Patrick and Buddy Rice will not race.

The IRL claims another victim. Won't be the last.

CowbellGuy
The IRL claims another victim. Won't be the last.

Why blame the IRL instead of the drivers, the equipment or fate? (Seriously. I'm not really a racing fan, so I'd like to hear the explanation.)

For a start, that's the third IRL fatality in the last 10 years.

(Of course, in 40's Italian racing that used to be an average weekend.)

Sorry. I should pay more attention to the other fora. Forgot about this topic. Why the IRL? Because open-wheel racing doesn't belong on high-banked ovals. Besides the fact that NASCAR has that market cornered, open-wheel cars are far too dangerous for tracks like Texas and Homestead. Ten years ago, the IRL was started by the owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway because he wanted more power than that being afforded to him by the existing series/sanctioning body (CART).

Last year, the IRL ran a few street and road courses for the first time, but they've been almost completely oval-based. Meanwhile the other series (CART/ChampCar) has turned into an almost exclusively street and road course-based series, now with just one flat 1-mile oval in its schedule.

Besides the obvious nature of the beast, running over 200 mph next to a concrete wall, the IRL wanted to be like NASCAR, so they loaded their cars up with downforce. As a result, not only can a trained monkey drive them, it breeds pack-racing. That's fine when you have bumpers and fenders, but when wheels start touching, very bad things happen. Anyway, before I really start going off, attached is a comparison of injuries since the split. Note which series has more (and more serious) injuries, and the type of track they happen on.

Good comparison. Open wheel racing has always been insanely dangerous. It got better in the 1980s and 1990s especially with better barriers on runoff areas at road courses (and stronger cockpits and harnesses and head restraints), but still a couple people a year get killed, and the sustained speeds on the ovals are probably not good for driver longevity.

I did a Skip Barber program a couple years ago at Laguna Seca, the track where Gonzalo Rodriguez was killed in the corkscrew in 1999. It takes an incredible act of courage to go down that twisty hill at 20 mph in a sedan let alone 40 mph in a Formula Ford/Dodge with no passing allowed let alone what real race drivers do in an Indy-car with other people breathing down your neck. It looks easy watching other people do it and next to impossible doing it yourself, lying almost flat on your back about 15 inches off the roadway. Not sure I agree that trained monkeys can run ovals. It's not as exciting as road course racing, but when you're pulling 2.5-plus G's, there are demands being place on your capabilities. If I recall, a couple NASCAR drivers last year or year before lapped F1 cars within a couple seconds of the F1 stalwarts, which threw off my personal bias that F1 drivers could clobber Indy/CART drivers who in turn could whup the NASCAR boys.

See anything on the Monaco race Monday in the New York Times? They seemed to have ignored it. One more reason to love the Web: No matter how minor the sport you care about (like hockey, lacrosse, wrestling, F1 (well, minor in the U.S.)), you can find plenty to read online.

I never said a trained monkey could race ovals. I said a trained monkey could race ovals in an IRL car.

Every time I go back to Laguna, they've emasculated the corkscrew more and more. The tree's gone. There's big runoff. There's fencing all the way around the bottom. And now, because of the pansy European MotoGP riders, the hump has been shaved down. You're always going to get some freak accidents on road courses that take lives. And sometimes you get Pat Carpentier doing a double-flip completely clearing the fence and landing upside down on the other side of it and walking away. I still haven't heard an explanation as to what happened with Rodriguez. Krosnoff's was freaky too. Wheels touched, car went airborne and hit a utility pole in the air, sideways, right where Jeff was. The big difference is in all the other accidents. On a road course or street course, you generally walk away, sometimes with a bruise. On an oval, you break a back. Leave the ovals for NASCAR.

As for the exhibition laps at Indy, the only one who was really allowed to push a bit was Jeff Gordon, and he got within a few seconds. Of course, those last few seconds are what separate the Schumacher(M.)s from the Yuji Ides. Jeff Gordon's an amazing driver and could have succeeded in F1 (or anything else) if he'd gone early enough. World Champion, probably not. Won some races and made a carreer, most likely.

Sebastien Bourdais (CCWS) recently was quoted as saying:

But when we used to go to Vegas for example, and it's two hours and basically the only input you have as a driver when you're going through traffic is pretty much how stupid you are willing to be. That's not racing.

Vegas, like most of the IRL's schedule is a 1.5 mile high-banked oval. IRL cars have less power and more downforce, so they're even easier to drive.

Sorry, point taken about oval monkey vs. IRL oval monkey.

You must be another person with the secret wish that the clock could turn back 40 years and the F1 GP would be at the Glen again in October this year and next year and next ...

The courses do have to adapt. Lime Rock had to add a chicane going up the hill onto the back straight because the IMSA and GTP and similar cars got airborne.

I thought Rodriguez got upside down *and* hit a hard barrier and his head and neck couldn't take the deceleration, but that's only the broad cause of death, not the specific. I never heard if his family pursued the $25M lawsuit or not.

Maybe we need an auto racing forum, titled something like Why David Hobbs Is a Great Guy But Should Never Call NASCAR Races on CBS.

Hey, my apologies if this thread kept you from photographing the progress over at Lynah. I would love to see a real-time project management sheet track projected vs. actual dates. For about three weeks in my life, I knew how to calculate a critical path. It's important for building airfields, less so for meeting publishing deadlines.

billhoward
You must be another person with the secret wish that the clock could turn back 40 years and the F1 GP would be at the Glen again in October this year and next year and next ...

I don't think Age has ever made this a secret. Ride with him sometime.