Goodbye Dan Wheldon
News Comment for October 20
Over the weekend, the motorsports world lost one of its own. Dan Wheldon, 33, was racing in the IRL for only the 3rd time this year. He was a 2 time Indy 500 champion, including this year’s event, and the 2005 series champion.
A horrific 15-car accident on lap 11 of the final race of the IRL season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway left several cars careening through the air, one of which was the #77 of Dan Wheldon. After it was apparent that Wheldon was seriously injured, he was life-flighted to a nearby hospital and the race was red-flagged for track repairs.
For nearly 2 hours, drivers, teams, fans and viewers all waited to hear an update on Wheldon, praying that it would be good news. As the minutes passed by and no news was available, it became apparent that the news would not be good.
After a 45 minute meeting with the drivers, series CEO Randy Bernard made the announcement that we were all afraid of. “IndyCar is very sad to announce that Dan Wheldon has passed away from unsurvivable injury.”
He went on to say the race, hardly 5% complete at the time, would not be finished. Instead, the 19 cars that made it through the accident would complete a 5 lap tribute to their fallen competitor and friend. Teams lined pit road as the cars circled the track, around the scoring pylon which showed only one number in the first position, the #77.
As the five laps concluded, cars returned to pit road and ABC signed off for the final time this season. Under tragic circumstances, lead announcer Marty Reid ended the broadcast in a way that brought not only me to tears, but I’m sure many other viewers as well.
Marty Reid’s “Goodbye Dan Wheldon”
Goodbye Dan Wheldon, you will be missed by your family, friends, competitors, teammates, and us fans.
This incident has left a major hole in the Indy Racing, but it has impacted motorsports in general. Does a fatal accident affect the way drivers race? Here’s an article about that.
October 25th, 2011 at 1:16 pm
The link didn’t work for me, Nick. I’m not qualified to comment on auto racing, but it is spectacle designed to be awesome (in the original sense of the word), so I wouldn’t expect a lot of change.