Two months ago, I wrote an article following the death of Bryan Clauson that talked about the inherent risk of racing and that every time a driver sits in a racecar, they know that there is a small chance that this very well could be their last day. Unfortunately, on this day 5 years ago, it was for Dan Wheldon. It seems as though about once a year the racing community loses someone while driving at the racetrack, which is tough on the community as a whole.
On Sunday, October 15, 2011, the IZOD IndyCar Series was in Las Vegas at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for their season finale. Before the race, there were many concerns over the driver’s safety because a number of cars that IndyCar was allowing for racing at the track. Normally, all but one of the oval races that the series runs limits the field to about 28 cars per race, but due to it being the series finale, plus the 5-million-dollar bonus for any driver willing to start at the back of the field and attempt to win the race. This was the second race Wheldon was running this season and most of the season, he spent developing the new, safer chassis that IndyCar was developing for the 2012 season. In honor of Wheldon, IndyCar decided to name the new chassis after him, the DW12. Dan Wheldon was one of those who was running for that bonus and he had announced before the race that he would be sharing half of the purse with one of the fans that were in the stands. In the 11 laps of the 200 for the race, it was evident that the drivers were driving on pins and needles because they were all running so close to one another.
On the 11th lap, there was a huge 15 car wreck, in which the aftermath looked like a war zone out of a movie scene. There were scraps of cars all over the track, along with portions of the race fence, which was ripped out from cars flying up into the fence. One of the cars that ended up in the fence was Dan Wheldon's. When Wheldon went up into the fence, his car went cockpit first into the fence and traveled along the fence, where he received the injuries that he would later succumb to. Wheldon died due to blunt force trauma to the head from when his head struck a pole that held up the fence. To honor Wheldon, the drivers did a five-lap salute with his number 77 at the top of the scoring pylon.
I was there in the stands watching the race on a day that was quite warm for an October day in the desert. Seeing the wreck in person wasn’t a pretty thing to see. Watching the crash, you hoped that everyone would walk away from that accident with how violent and scary it was. There were a few drivers that were able to be helped out of their cars and had some injuries that take a little bit to heal, but with Wheldon, the safety crew seemed to be taking their time with extracting Wheldon from the car. You could tell that something wasn’t right with Wheldon because the safety crews set up their vehicles in a way that blocked just about every camera angle that the track had. Now this was something that I had never seen before in the many races that I had been to before and adding that to how long they were taking to remove him from the car, it seemed like it was going to be something more than a broken wrist or even a broken leg.
Wheldon is one of those who drivers who never really got the opportunity that he deserved. He was a heck of a talent and the only real shot that he got came before the prime of his career and while there was still so much more upside left in his career. However, you could never hate the guy for the effort that he put out on the track. This was evident that even drivers who were feuding with Wheldon at the time were broken up the news that Wheldon didn’t survive the crash. In addition to that, every year drivers from around the world fly to England to race in the Wheldon Memorial Pro-Am kart race which is meant to not only honor the passing of the late Wheldon and raise money for charities that Wheldon supported. Wheldon was a guy that you couldn’t help but respect just for the effort that he gave every time he got behind the wheel, even if it wasn’t with the equipment that he deserved.
