One year ago today...

One of the darkest days in IndyCar history occured...

During the 2011 IZOD IndyCar World Championship at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a horrific 15 car crash broke out on Lap 11, and IndyCar lost one of the best drivers it had ever had. A man who had the courage of a lion, and a heart of gold. That man... was Daniel Clive Wheldon.

R.I.P. Dan Wheldon. You will never be forgotten.

I'll be completely honest, on that day I never cried has hard as I did since 2001....

I gotta admit, Indycar did probably one of the best tributes, EVER to a racing driver!

I remember where I was when I found out. A sad day indeed.
Dan Wheldon RIP

I couldn't believe what I saw that day.

I still don't.

I can't believe it's been a year.

You are missed, Dan.

I'm wearing my Dan Wheldon "Lionheart" shirt today.

Can't believe it has been a year. We miss you greatly, Dan.

I was predicting a thread like this would happen.

R.I.P Dan Wheldon 1978 - 2011.

I had a bad feeling during the whole delay after they covered up Dan's car. While Dan was never my favorite driver, I always had high respect for him as a fiery, strong-willed competitor. He was always a threat no matter what kind of equipment he had. The 2011 Indy 500 proved this. I never thought I'd have to watch another driver pass away live in a wreck like I did ten years earlier with Dale Earnhardt. I can't believe it's been a year already because I remember how much I cried during the tribute like it was yesterday.

RIP Dan Wheldon. You were an incredibly talented driver, are greatly missed.

*Disregard frickin double post*

For me I didn't see the wreck live. I was getting to go out with my aunts for my 21st which was that Friday. It dawned on me the race was on. When I turned it on they were showing replays of the crash. I remember thinking that it didn't look good.

And it is almost erie that the last two fatal race crashes I saw (Wheldon and Earnhardt) the weather was picture perfect.

It's better to remember people in their best moments, rather than the worst.



RIP Dan Wheldon, an incredible talent.

Milan655 wrote:It's better to remember people in their best moments, rather than the worst.



RIP Dan Wheldon, an incredible talent.

This is the thing I remember him most for, that and being waken by my dad who told me he had died. It stills shocks me how someone can go from one great moment to a tragic one. RIP Dan Wheldon.

I remember watching the wreck as it happened. As much as we all love motorsports, we know these things can happen. One of the most unfortunate accidents I've ever seen, and it cost us one of the great open wheel drivers in recent history.

Milan655 wrote:It's better to remember people in their best moments, rather than the worst.



RIP Dan Wheldon, an incredible talent.

No one will forget that finish...

ever.

I'll be honest. When I first heard the announcement that the IndyCar's were going back to Las Vegas last year, I was against the idea since they changed the banking after Champ Car stopped racing there, and the speeds would be insane. When it came to that weekend, my opinion on it somewhat changed with IndyCar having momentum coming to the season finale. New cars were coming into the series next year, Danica Patrick's last IndyCar race, an epic points battle, big field, etc. Seconds after the green flag dropped, I was in awe of how close and fast the racing was. It was nuts. I was thinking to myself, "Damn. If one driver slips up, it's game over for half of the field." Once I saw a puff of smoke billowing up, the rest was history. To think of how Dan Wheldon had so much going for him, signing a contract with Andretti Autosports, testing the DW-12, winning the Indy 500 in grand style, and have that happen to him, was devastating. Looking back at it now, I'm still in shock on what happened in front of my eyes. As long as I live, I hope to never experience something like this again, but we can't forget that death is always lurking around the corner.

RealRacer4 wrote:I'll be honest. When I first heard the announcement that the IndyCar's were going back to Las Vegas last year, I was against the idea since they changed the banking after Champ Car stopped racing there, and the speeds would be insane. When it came to that weekend, my opinion on it somewhat changed with IndyCar having momentum coming to the season finale. New cars were coming into the series next year, Danica Patrick's last IndyCar race, an epic points battle, big field, etc. Seconds after the green flag dropped, I was in awe of how close and fast the racing was. It was nuts. I was thinking to myself, "Damn. If one driver slips up, it's game over for half of the field." Once I saw a puff of smoke billowing up, the rest was history. To think of how Dan Wheldon had so much going for him, signing a contract with Andretti Autosports, testing the DW-12, winning the Indy 500 in grand style, and have that happen to him, was devastating. Looking back at it now, I'm still in shock on what happened in front of my eyes. As long as I live, I hope to never experience something like this again, but we can't forget that death is always lurking around the corner.

It's like the same thing happened with Dale Earnhardt Sr in the 2001 Daytona 500. If that fateful wreck hadn't happened on the last lap, he would've gone to victory lane to celebrate Michael Waltrip's first win as Waltrip drove for him at the time, but sadly he never got the chance too.

I remember this day extremely well because it just happened to be my brother's birthday that his fatal crash happened on. I didn't watch Indycar much, but I had always liked Wheldon. Last year I had a Wheldon avatar to pay tribute, I'm gonna go ahead and do the same this year, through this week.

I remember I had just gotten home (from where, I can't really remember) completely unaware of the crash, as I'd forgotten to watch the race. I got online to log onto EFR and I noticed some people were sporting DW avatars, and I had an idea of what happened, but I tried to convince myself that he had won the race and that's why his picture was all over the place. I looked up his Wikipedia page and sure enough...well...you get the idea.

RIP Dan Wheldon

Rykia_RKXK wrote:I remember this day extremely well because it just happened to be my brother's birthday that his fatal crash happened on. I didn't watch Indycar much, but I had always liked Wheldon. Last year I had a Wheldon avatar to pay tribute, I'm gonna go ahead and do the same this year, through this week.

I thought I'd do the same thing too.

BWardboy88 wrote:

Rykia_RKXK wrote:I remember this day extremely well because it just happened to be my brother's birthday that his fatal crash happened on. I didn't watch Indycar much, but I had always liked Wheldon. Last year I had a Wheldon avatar to pay tribute, I'm gonna go ahead and do the same this year, through this week.

I thought I'd do the same thing too.

same here.

I'd been watching some fatal accidents on YouTube just hours before the race. I was so excited about the race and hoping that my favorite IndyCar driver would be able to win it from dead last. Seeing the wreck live hoping that Dan had made it through and hours later crying as they announced Dan had passed away.

I do remember me feeling extremely guilty and upset at myself because I was excited to see a big field of cars, mainly because IndyCar had been having trouble in recent years to have a decent-sized field. Also, I felt guilty because Wheldon wasn't really my favorite driver. I don't know why, but it never occurred to me why I didn't like him. That's what made me super angry at myself after the wreck.

Since we're all sharing our stories...

I hadn't made it a priority to watch the race that day, but when I heard news of the wreck I flipped it on. The replays looked absolutely horrifying, and between the tarps coming out and the reports that there was "no word on his condition" I started drawing parallels to Earnhardt's crash. I vaguely remember having to go somewhere before they actually announced it, but when I got back I checked Dan's Wikipedia page...and distinctly remember seeing the word "was". It started to hit me, then Blake Camphausen Skyped me and said it was confirmed. The rest of the day was just...depression.

At some point, a month after the crash probably, I wrote a poem for him. If I had a copy saved on this computer I'd share it with all of you.

Dan was a great driver, though I never saw much of what he did save his second Indy win. He was taken much too soon.

I didn't get to see the wreck live, but I saw a replay after Alta posted on my Facebook wall saying that there was a huge wreck in the Indycar race, and when I turned on the TV in the TV room in the Rec center I was at, I saw a replay, and I knew something wasn't right....I was glued to my Facebook and Twitter pretty much all night.

I'm still yet to see the accident. I, in fact, barely remember the weekend at all, most likely drowned out by Marco Simoncelli a week later. A week of darkness not seen since 1994...

Milan655 wrote:I'm still yet to see the accident. I, in fact, barely remember the weekend at all, most likely drowned out by Marco Simoncelli a week later. A week of darkness not seen since 1994...

I remember watching the Indy race live and instantly thinking the worst then when Simoncelli died the following weekend in that horrific accident. Dark week in motorsports.

R.I.P Dan Wheldon, one of the greatest drivers to race indycars.
You are missed and will forever be in our hearts.

I remember watching the wreck and everything after that, and it wasn't sinking in that Wheldon was gone. It wasn't until the three-wide salute and the playing of Amazing Grace on the bagpipes that it truly hit home.

R.I.P. Dan Wheldon. You haven't been forgotten.

Every event leading up to the incident was so eerie it's frightening. This is going to be more about the ISRA teamspeak reaction then anything since i was talking to some the people there and EFR members when the crash happenend. May go too much into detail on this and i apologize if this sounds really weird.

When Vegas was annouced as returning to the Indycar schedule i had a feeling it was going to lead some shenanigans with how narrow it became since the repave...I remember us on the ISRA teamspeak chatting about the same sentiment...

Weekend of the race, Same sentiments still remain that there is shenanigans inbound come race time. James Jakes has a big crash in practice and although it was minor in comparison of what would happen...I kind of had worries about the race. Qualifying comes around and i remember the field being pretty spread around between the championship contenders and the one-off/rookie drivers, With a few surprises in the top 10 i was pretty stoked/a tiny bit concerned..."DAT INDYCAR TOP 10 STARTERS FOR VEGAS! Or the biggest turn 1 wreck you'll ever see. (Quote from my facebook on October 14th 2011 a mere 2 days before the race)

Race day comes at i hope into teamspeak...Everyone's pretty stoked for the race knowing how the superspeedway Indycar races are filled with lots of actions, We all still share that same sentiment of the possibility a big wreck occurs, but in the back of my mind it was probably going to be you're typical Indycar superspeedway fun race and with excitement and drama...Just like Kentucky the race before.

Green flag drops and not even seconds into the race it's 3 wide throughout the field..The way the cars were working in the draft and the way they bunched together it looked like a Nascar Talladega race but with open wheel cars....The excitement quickly turned to everyone being worried knowing with the Talladega-esque pack mentality that one wrong move wipes out a good portion of the field. Tagliani and Briscoe have their close call and that scares the crap out of everyone knowing that any closer and we would've had that bad wreck 4 laps before hand. From there on i knew that if we had another coming together similar to that it could end badly, but i assumed if it were to happen it was going to be the just something similar to Briscoe's 2005/Conway's 2010 wreck...Injuries are likely yes but everyone will walk out of it alive. They show the Dan Wheldon moving through the field and with the way he was tearing through the field i thought he had a great shot and playing the surprise card when it came down to the end of the race.

Then it happened. Being on teamspeak there is certain time differentals on when you see a crash/moment/etc. depending on where you live/tv packages/etc...BBoy was ahead of everybody followed closely by Batista and me being about with everyone else. BBoy's yells "We're wrecking!" over the mic..and my first thought "That must of taken out some cars the way he was yelling it." Teamspeak bursts into screaming/incomprehensible noise....Next thought is we've had that big one/airborne crash that we had previously talked/worried about. Pictures of the wreck come up and i remember screaming and being shocked as well....It looked like it was out the Driven movie.(Which keep in mind had horrible CGI and had the most unrealistic wrecks that not only are ridiculous but completely defies the laws of physics.)

The wreck was so violent that at first glance i thought more cars had flipped/airborne and it even had me believe that someone went clean over the catch fence and into the parking lot outside the track. The wreck had us in frightened mood not even moments after the crash...We did for a moment take into account that Power was in the crash and that Franchitti had missed the wreck...With a good portion of the teamspeak against Franchitti it put us in a more dejected mood. When we saw the stretcher being brought out it was serious....our group who usually has fun chatting about racing had been brought to a mood of sorrowfulness.

They confirm it's Wheldon and everyone becomes more worried...Tarp goes over the car and helicopter fires up and everyone is scarred...I felt that same feeling but was still holding out hope that he'd be okay...I mean the last time we saw a tarp go over a car was when Patrick Sheltra and Larry Hollenbeck had their vicious wreck at Daytona in 2009 and they came out with only back/neck injuries. (Pippa Mann also had a tarp over the car as well, and she came out of it awake and alert)

The group is sorrow the rest of the broadcast and with no word hours into the red flag it starts to get grim, After the driver's leave the Indycar trailer and the shot they show of Tony Kannan we knew what had happened, Some of us held out hope, hoping that it was not as serious as the driver's faces showed. I remember some of our older as well as younger guys starting to cry over the teamspeak. It is annouced and i could feel my heart dropped. I somehow didn't cry over it initally, i was stunned but didn't cry. Everyone was heartbroken over the loss of Wheldon one of the greats of Indycar. It didn't sink in that he was gone.

I stay focused on the media aspect of the wreck for the days that followed...It was late at night when footage from the grandstands starting appearing on Youtube and one of videos showed the clip of 3 wide tribute and Amazing Grace playing over the track's PA system and that's when it sunk, one of the respected drivers of Indycar and in the 2011 season had turned into a favorite of mine (I liked him before hand, but didn't really move into my favorites until then) when he did an awesome job on the commentary team and showed to the world his devotion for the sport and how he was raring to get back behind the wheel of that car.

That devotion is what becomes the new indycar named the DW12 and his innovations with the car has made it a proven safer car for the Indycar series. With a ton of big smashes at Indy this year, everyone walked away unharmed from each of those wrecks. And not only will his legacy be remember for his achievements in his racing career but the innovations he made in developing Indycar's new chassis for the 2012 season and onwards.

RIP Dan. We miss you every day.

Again apologize if the sounds weird/too detailed/ me rambling on about the incident.

I was working the overnight shift at the time and didn't wake up until 6 or 7 at night. I believe the first word I got was when I checked my email and saw a Yahoo! article about a "horrifying crash" in the Indy race. I simultaneously pulled up both Youtube and EFR, because I figured that if there was a big crash, not only did I want to see it, but I figured there would be some amusing comments on the forum about it. So I type something like "indycar crash 2012" into Youtube.

You ever come across some stupid videos like a kid throwing his diecast against a wall and posting it as "Jeff Gordon fatal crash"? Well that was the kind of feeling I got when I saw the first search results showing "Dan Weldon fatal crash". But then I saw page two. And page three. And so on.

Never have I had a more surreal moment than when I saw those pages of search results and realized what had happened. It was by far one of the saddest day's I've had in a long, long time.

In my usual way I researched it and studied the video to try and understand better everything that went on, what caused what, etc. After a few days I realized how eerily similar it was to Greg Moore's death. I still get a chill thinking about it

One year ago yesterday...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/other-sports/motogp-marco-simoncelli---58-1394335

No wonder Rossi and Stoner believe the sport is not exciting, they lost the only excitement one year ago. Simoncelli, RIP.

RIP Marco Simoncelli, can't believe I didn't realise it was yesterday last year that he was killed.