Too Fast, Too Close: Can IndyCar Change After Dan Wheldon's Death?

Yesterday, two-time Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon was killed in a horrific crash at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. And much like Dale Earnhardt's death at the 2001 Daytona 500 focused the world's attention on driver safety, Wheldon's untimely passing will no doubt reignite the conversation. In fact, there are frightening similarities between Wheldon's and Earnhardt's deaths.

The primary problems are the same: Cars are too fast, and too close. Daytona International Speedway, where Earnhardt died a decade ago, is a 2.5-mile tri-oval with 31 degrees of banking in the turns. It was built in 1958, and since then, stock cars have gotten so sophisticated that drivers can circle Daytona without ever lifting off the gas. In 1987, Bill Elliot qualified with an average speed of 210 mph. That's simply too fast for the drivers and the spectators should an accident happen.

Nascar's response was to limit cars' horsepower at fast tracks like Daytona and Talladega by restricting the amount of air that goes into the engine. (That's why they're called "restrictor plate" races.) Drivers don't like them because the results are more dependent upon luck than skill, and the restriction also means that the cars race packed together in large groups. One little mistake can cause a massive wreck. Before the race you hear Nascar drivers say they want to avoid "the big one." They all know the wreck is coming, they just hope to avoid it.

Before the IndyCar race in which Wheldon died, drivers were saying the same thing. Marshall Pruett, an ex-Indycar engineer and now a reporter for Speedtv.com, was at the Vegas race. "This is the first time I've heard the IndyCar drivers say that they were waiting for the big one," he says. "They all knew a huge wreck was coming."

At 1.5 miles, Las Vegas Motor Speedway is a mile shorter than Daytona and the turns don't bank quite so high. But an open-wheeled lightweight race car like an IndyCar racer is a much faster vehicle than a Nascar stock car. So at Vegas this past weekend, the drivers could also circle the track with throttles wide open the entire time. The average speed was an incredible 224 mph.

IndyCar doesn't have special intake restrictors like Nascar does. However, the cars wind up in large packs anyway because they are essentially identical. Every Indycar runs a Honda engine, Dallara chassis, and Firestone tires. Teams look for an edge in adjusting the alignment and aerodynamic devices. But at Vegas, there's simply not much art to a good and fast setup.

"Like [at the Indianapolis 500], the teams adjust the cars for little downforce and drag," Pruett says. Because the track's banking, the engineers don't need to position the wings to push the cars into the pavement and increase cornering grip?they can move the wings to "trim the cars out," decreasing drag and boosting the straight-line speed.

What's more, 34 cars raced at Vegas?one more than take the green flag at Indy (and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a mile longer than Vegas). "The margin of error was zero," Preutt says. "No one had to make a hugely boneheaded move to cause a pileup. All it took was one tiny mistake. And any driver will tell you that they make minute mistakes and corrections all the time. It's part of the game. But here, one small mistake had outsize consequences."

Just a few laps into the race, a couple of drivers grouped in a huge pack made slight contact. It set off "the big one." Wheldon came upon the melee with no options. Because he was turning, jamming on the brakes would likely have sent him into a spin. Because of the smoke, and the fact that the driver's head is only a couple of feet off the ground, he couldn't see. And there simply wasn't enough time for his spotter to guide him.

If Wheldon had been in a Nascar stock car, things might have turned out different. The Indycar's exposed wheels leave them vulnerable to flight, and the Indycar's open cockpit left Wheldon's head exposed. As is the case in most big accidents, there wasn't one piece that led to Wheldon's death, but a succession of problems that taken together became lethal.

Over the next few days, there will be plenty of hand-wringing about the safety of racing. Safety has improved immensely over the years, both in IndyCar and Nascar; where fatalities were once a weekly occurrence, they're now rare. But driving 200-plus mph in an open-cockpit car will always carry some risk. Beyond changing the basic architecture of the car, it's hard to imagine how to make an Indycar significantly safer.

Still, the discussion needs to happen, because there are options out there to make IndyCar racing at least a little safer. Where Earnhardt's death accelerated the implementation of cushioned walls and head-and-neck safety gear, Wheldon's death should lead to a close examination of the superspeedway. These highly banked oval tracks, which were either built long ago or modeled after existing venues, should be changed. They're dinosaurs, and everyone in the racing community knows it. In the January 1995 issue of Car and Driver, noted mechanic and early crusader of cushioned walls Smokey Yunick said, "All high-banked tracks are junk." During a dinner with Jack Roush some 15 years ago, he suggested installing chicanes in the straights to slow the cars down.

There are lots of ideas. Hopefully the good ones will now receive proper attention.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/vintage-speed/can-indycar-change-after-dan-wheldons-death?src=rss

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