Dan Wheldon apparently seriously injured. Horrific multiple crash. 🙁

Anyone seen the TV footage? Proper shocking. 😯

Hope everyone involved comes through this one. Really nasty crash.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFCOugYb6Hg&feature=player_embedded#![/video]

Horrific

😯 i hope everyone’s ok

Just saw it on the news. Not nice.

Jeebus H

😯

So was anyone else badly injured?

holy cow.

fingers crossed they are ok

A crash on an oval track can really really snowball can’t it!?!

Yep – nowhere for them to go – just bounce off the safety fence 🙁

3 cars sent airborne over other cars there. They need to look at why it is happening to see if they can prevent it. Unavoidable if hitting the wheels but if some is due to low side pods then they should look into setting minimum heights as it’s a situation you really don’t want to be in. The 3rd car sent up in the air flew for a long way.

The explosions are like something out of a Hollywood movie

edit: not sure if one of the drivers that got launched into the air is going to make it. 🙁

😯

Scary stuff

Breaking news: apparently Dan Wheldon has died.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/15330202.stm

Just gets worse.

Very sad indeed, an extremely talented lad.

Dreadful

All over twitter

RIP. Hope it was fast and painless

BBC just confirmed he’s died, very sad news. Best wishes to his wife and young family.

very sad. Which car was he in?

RIP Dan, one of britians great racers

RIP Dan.

Onboard footage from Will Powers car looks horrific.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1UrfkvAbv0[/video]

Wheldon’s car was missing it’s roll hoop after the accident. It must have been a hell of an impact

Watched it live over here in the USA. Particularly sad since Wheldon spent much of this season testing the new safer 2012 car (rear impact zones to prevent cars being launched into air in rear end shunts). Sad irony.

I watched the Senna movie on the plane over too. Lots of parallels. Dead at 33. What a waste.

Watched it live on the big screen here at Daytona today,sickening silence when it happened. RIP

Very sad news

That was awful. RIP lad 🙁

🙁 Awful.

Watched him and followed his career through karting inc European and World champs. He was a gifted driver.

Thoughts to his Mrs and two kids.

RIP Danny. 🙁

Is this a stupid question, but why so many cars in flames? Must be four or five of them that are burning!!

I’m guessing that the cars achieve forward motion by means of an engine? Last time I noticed, engines weren’t powered by puppies….

Terrible news. I didn’t see the crash and frankly I don’t want to, but from the descriptions of the accident it sounds like the car has gone into the wall roll hoop first, much like what happened to Greg Moore. Awful, but hopefully quick and painless 😥

Very sad. RIP Danny.

wrightyson – Member

Is this a stupid question, but why so many cars in flames? Must be four or five of them that are burning!!

Broken hydraulic lines + hot brake discs or exhaust.
Can’t find any info on the fuel tanks of Indycars but if they’re anything like the F1 car design it’s unlikely to be fuel tank failure as they’re made from puncture proof deformable kevlar.

They are fueled by Bio-ethanol anyway so shouldn’t burn with an orange flame. The wheels are magnesium so when they grind along concrete they ignite and brake fluid etc will all burn quite readily.

Really shocking stuff. It looks like the aftermath of a plane crash not a motorsport event.

That in car footage is truly horrific. I’m actually surprised there weren’t more fatalaties. RIP Dan Wheldon

Yep, that’s bad news about Dan Wheldon.

It looks that the majority of the accident wasn’t actually the initial collision, but was in the following pack who bunched up & ploughed into each other.
It does seem like a pretty dangerous form of motorsport, with so many cars going at that speed with little room for manoeuvre if something does go wrong.

Walleater nice sarcasm which was clearly wrong then!! I fully assumed it wasn’t fuel but couldn’t believe the number of cars in flames!! Can’t say I’ve seen anything like that in an f1 big pile up?

Most of the speed in F1 is scrubbed off by massive runoffs before they hit anything solid. They Indycars were lapping Las Vegas at 225 mph and there’s no where to go

There’s been some big F1 pile ups but usually at the start and a much slower speed

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e287pHZNUcs[/video]

it was an accident waiting too happen,a contrived race with more than the “normal” number of runners on a small oval with speeds of 225mph.

Can’t say I’ve seen anything like that in an f1 big pile up?

I was thinking the same thing. Not all f1 crashes are low speed due to the “safer” nature of the racing but Its been a long time since I’ve noticed serious flames in an f1 crash. Different fuel or fuel tank regs?

Desperately sad. The only positive is that it happens so rarely now it is so news worthy. If this was the 70’s fatal motorsport accidents were much more common.

The Daily Hate has some still photos of Wheldon mid crash. Not going to embed them though

Here