Open-Wheel Racing Safety

It's been almost two weeks now since the tragedy at Las Vegas. It's time to move from a period of mourning to a period of planning for the future. It's time to examine the safety of open-wheel racing and determine what needs to be done so that we don't have to go through this again any time soon. It's happened too often, and it's too much on the drivers, families, and fans.

So now it's time for the 3SN debate. Ryan and I have been big auto racing fans for years. Ryan grew up in F1, myself with IndyCar. This year, we made a point of emphasis to start following each others' series. Up through September, we've had many stories to share, issues to critique, and exciting new aspects of racing we had never seen before and loved. Now, after a terrible end to the 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series, our differing racing backgrounds provides a unique range of opinions regarding the safety of racing.

These are just our opinions, and we'd love to hear yours as well! What do other racing fans (and non-racing fans alike) believe regarding the safety of the drivers?

Is it reasonable to blame IndyCar for the death of Dan Wheldon?

Ryan: I’m prepared to take some considerable flak for this, but I do believe IndyCar can be blamed for Dan Wheldon’s death. I won’t expound too much on it here, because my answers to subsequent questions more thoroughly address the matter, but I will briefly mention that the sport’s governing body and management are responsible for whatever happens on the track. Decisions have consequences and Wheldon’s accident, while highly regrettable, was not just a senseless tragedy – its cause was rooted in institutional failures and lack of what is commonly termed a “safety culture.”

James: This one I can see both ways. Are accidents going to happen? Of course. Will some of them be fatal? Yes, that’s the sport. No matter how disappointing it is to say this, you’re going to get freak crashes which will end tragically. (And on a side note, this is NOT just racing…there are tragedies in just about every sport out there. Maybe not all are fatalities, but it’s a sad and tragic day when somebody ends up out for the year or having a neck injury threatening paralysis, nevertheless losing a life. Football, hockey, boxing, horse racing, and auto racing have all had these.) Sports, yes ALL sports, are dangerous. The racers have all come out and said that. They know it, they accept it.
BUT, that being said, the decisions made by IndyCar this year have been questionable to say the least. It started in New Hampshire, where Brian Barnhart didn’t listen to the drivers when it started to sprinkle lightly. The result: five cars spin out before the green flag waves. (At least they got it right and voided that restart) But then, in Vegas they decide to start 34 racers? Remember, the 2.5 mile oval of Indianapolis Motor Speedway only races 33 cars, first instituted back in the late 1910s / early 1920s as a safety limit. The number of cars was limited based on the size of the track. So now we’re saying that it’s safe to have MORE cars on a SMALLER track? The drivers (again) knew that it wasn’t going to be safe and voiced their displeasure. Did Barnhart and IndyCar listen? No.

With all of the safety features and innovations and precautions over the years, what conclusion do you draw regarding open-wheel racing? Is it just too dangerous? Does more have to be done? by drivers, teams, officials?


Ryan: Well first, when dealing with a matter this specific within motorsport, it’s probably best not to broadly categorize because it’s going to get us in to trouble with generalized assertions. Open-wheel racing refers to a plethora of separate, distinctive sports – including but certainly not limited to Formula Ford, Formula Renault, Formula BMW, F3000, F3, F2, GP3, GP2, and of course, IndyCar and Formula 1. Thus when a question is proposed in such broad terms, a concise answer is impossible to provide.
The only generalization I can offer that might suffice is that open-wheel racing (all categories) seems to be safer than it used to be. All professional series now feature proper head protection, a simple precaution that we now take for granted. The HANS device or a derivative thereof is now standard. Trackside medical staff is better trained and marshals more numerous than in years past. However, these rules apply as much to other categories of motorsport as they do specifically to open-wheel racing.

Honestly, I'm not quite sure how anyone lived through the 1950s. Watch Herrmann simply get up and walk away.

James: There used to be fatalities annually. YouTube “Indy 500 fatalities” and you’ll find a bunch of in-race crashes from the 60s that were fatal. The cars are safer, disintegrating upon impact with the wall to disperse energy away from the driver. The barriers are safer, with now every major speedway in the country having the SAFER barrier (created by IndyCar in 2003 after the death of Tony Renna). The safety crews are second-to-none (they get a flipped car back right-side-up less than 60 seconds after it hits the wall). Again, it’s dangerous, and everybody knows it. Drivers, teams, engineers, and officials are always looking for ways to increase safety while not decreasing excitement too much. It’s a fine line, one that people will probably say needs to be crossed after October 16^th.

Start this video at about 6:15 to see the speed of the safety crews

Honestly, would there be this big of a response if it was a no-named rookie "wanna-be" driver and not Dan Wheldon, a two-time Indy 500 winner and former IndyCar Series champ?

Ryan: I honestly feel that the status within the sport of the driver in question should not (and realistically does not) have any bearing on the legitimacy of criticism regarding the safety of that sport. The circumstances of his death carry far more weight.
The tragic death of Roland Ratzenberger in 1994 meant no less because he drove for the hopelessly uncompetitive Simtek racing team, nor because Imola was only his third race in Formula 1. He died because the sport was fundamentally unsafe. Three-time World Driver’s Champion Ayrton Senna was claimed that same weekend for the same reason. Paul Dana was fatally injured in a crash in 2006 at Homestead-Miami Speedway not because he was a rookie (though it was a contributing factor) but because racing at 200+ MPH in a circle is extraordinarily dangerous. A myriad of inexperienced pay drivers have frequented Formula 1’s lower tier for decades without incident. In fact, the most alarming accidents in recent memory have involved seasoned veterans Felipe Massa (2009) and Robert Kubica (2007).
Established racing series must walk a narrow line of maintaining a safe racing environment, but also not discouraging new talent or the entire upwardly-mobile infrastructure of feeder series becomes superfluous. Dan Wheldon’s tragic loss seems to have a greater impact only because of the graphic nature of the crash, the effect it had of truncating the 2011 season, and the fact that it is the latest in a seemingly unstoppable sequence of fatalities in American upper-division open wheel racing (Cart and IndyCar).

James: There shouldn’t be a difference. But sadly I think there is. I look back to the 2006 death of Paul Dana before the first race of the season. Dana was a rookie, racing in three IndyCar Series races in the previous season. He was inexperienced, and honestly not a very good racer. He had a sponsorship and had enough talent to make it to the big show, but I’m sorry, he wasn’t the greatest racer at all. After his death, the general reaction I saw from message boards online and from ESPN was far from sympathetic. Many comments were something similar to the following: “He never should have been in a race car. He had plenty of time to slow down, should have known better. It’s a miracle he didn’t kill Ed Carpenter.” No remorse, just disappointment that he was ever in the car.
Now with Wheldon’s passing, a respected and well-known superstar of the sport, not only is IndyCar getting attention on SportsCenter for the first time since Wheldon won the Indy 500 four months earlier, but the entire racing community is joining together. Graham Rahal stated he was going to auction off his helmet to raise money, and now as of October 28^th, there are 70 items up for auction on eBay, with all proceeds going to a trust fund for Wheldon’s children, some items of which are over $10,000 with almost a week to go. We wouldn’t see this if Wheldon wasn’t so talented, well-liked, and well-respected. (Click HERE to check out the auction!)

Are ovals too dangerous for racing?

Ryan: The answer to this question really depends on the priority one places on drivers’ safety. If one blithely justifies away fatalities with such hollow truisms as “racing is dangerous,” then not at all. As ovals are currently constructed, considering the speeds reached and the nature of design of IndyCars, and assuming fans don’t want to witness a repeat of Las Vegas every five years, then ovals are absolutely unsafe for racing. As much as I loathe watching NASCAR, it has found an all-encompassing package (chassis design, medical and emergency crew organization, and general event planning and conduct guidelines) that work for oval racing and consequently, the last Sprint Cup/Winston Cup fatality was Dale Earnhardt in 2001.
If IndyCar wishes to race ovals, it must develop a formula which preserves the spectacle and intensity its fans desire but which also places a greater focus on driver protection. IndyCar is a uniquely fast category of racing that would benefit from having custom-built racing facilities. I propose locating fans in the infield in stands facing outward toward the banking. Not only is this a more optimal viewing arrangement, but the catch fencing on the outside of the track could be redesigned to give more during an accident, dispersing energy without shredding vehicles, and it would not compromise spectator safety. If IndyCar continues to race existent circuits, however, they must minimize the amount of cars on track at any one time.

James: Cars can’t get much faster, or else my answer would be “yes” for sure. Oval racing is too popular in the United States to get rid of it, and in my mind the only way that oval racing (or racing in general) can be fully “safe” is to not race. The most dangerous part of open-wheel racing is when cars get side-by-side, as that’s when wheels can touch and cars head to the wall. That’s how the 15-car crash began, with two cars side-by-side making slight contact. Courses like the Indianapolis Motor Speedway have corners that are just too flat and too narrow for cars to go side-by-side through the turn at full speed. The worst in-race crash at Indy was in 2010 where Mike Conway tried to go side-by-side with Ryan Hunter-Reay into turn three, and that was only because Hunter-Reay ran out of fuel and was running so slowly. Wheels touched, and Conway ended up in the catch fence just like Wheldon did 16 months later.
And even as such, the Vegas crash that claimed Wheldon’s life was a fluke. Well, the CRASH wasn’t, but the RESULT was. Wheldon went airborne, and landed on top of another car. He would’ve run into the SAFER barrier if he hadn’t unluckily landed on E.J. Viso’s car. Instead, he was “carried” toward the wall at a height OVER the wall and straight into the catch fence. And he just hit the fence the wrong way. Can catch fences be fixed? Ryan has the right answer there. But you’re sacrificing spectator safety for driver safety. That’s another fine line…

What sort of safety features still need to be instituted for open-wheel racing to be truly "safe" ?

Ryan: I cannot over-emphasize the importance of wheel tethers. Every open-wheel series has seen crashes where wheels are severed and careen haphazardly down the track. Henry Surtees was killed in July of ’09 at Brands Hatch when an errant wheel from an off-track competitor wandered, bouncing back onto the racing line and struck Surtees in the head, killing him instantly. Sebastien Buemi suffered a frightening run-off at China’s Shanghai International Circuit in 2010 while braking into T14. A front wishbone failed, instantly transferring the aero loading to the opposite side which also catastrophically failed. As a result, both wheels separated from the car nearly simultaneously and continued rolling ahead of the car, eventually bouncing up over the barrier and off the track.

Though F1 has wheel tethers, they don’t seem to work nearly as reliably as IndyCar’s implementation. To be fair, I also have to commend IndyCar on their tethering of the entire rear wing assembly to the chassis. Throughout the entire 2011 season, I have not witnessed a single incidence of this system not working as intended.

James: Honestly, the safety issues to me come when the cars are so alike. The Dallara chassis is the same one used from 2003, so eight years of teams perfecting the car to its maximum potential. The result, cars are just too close together, cannot separate themselves from the pack. The result: a NASCAR race. Stock cars can run together more safely because of their weight and terrible aerodynamic properties. They’re not going to fly into the air like planes if their wheels touch. There’s an exponentially greater margin of error in stock cars, it could almost be considered high-speed bumper cars. IndyCars and F1 cars can’t touch without heading into the wall.
So, for the safety features these cars need…supposedly the new IndyCar chassis is already designed with a safety-first mentality. The most noticeable new safety feature is the back wheel guard. Until I can see the new chassis in action, I cannot properly comment on “new” safety features for the car.

Formula One hasn't had a fatality since 1994, NASCAR since 2001. Why has IndyCar lost three since that time (Renna in '03 testing, Dana in '06, Wheldon in '11)?

Ryan: Formula 1 has not lost a driver since 1994. Between 1994 and 2011, IndyCar has suffered four driver fatalities and the now-defunct CART accounted for another three. F1 is the safest motorsport in the world because of a paranoid obsession with safety and (frankly) some luck. Following the tragedy at Imola in 1994, the focus of the sport shifted to a compromise between performance and safety (with an emphasis on the latter) rather than an all-out quest for speed and racing spectacle. Tracks were reevaluated on the grounds of whether they possessed adequate protection for drivers and fans and some venues were permanently, preemptively altered. The common turn of phrase “don’t fix it if it isn’t broken” is anathema to Formula 1 personnel; radical action is frequently taken even when catastrophe is narrowly averted.
F1 helmets now feature a carbon fiber reinforcement strip in the visor in reaction to an incident during qualifying for the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix which saw Ferrari driver Felipe Massa struck in the head by a 3 lb. heave spring off Rubens Barrichello’s Brawn chassis. In what is now considered an ignominious chapter in Formula 1 history, the US Grand Prix saw only six cars start when teams using Michelin tires refused to risk their drivers’ safety over concerns that the tires provided for the weekend would fail through the high speed banking of the final corner.

Modern F1: A Sport of Close Calls

Interlagos, Brazil 2003: Fernando Alonso missed double waved yellows and hit a tire from a previous crash. He suffered no serious injury and participated in the next race at San Marino.

Kubica's massive off at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in 2007. A decade ago, this crash would have been fatal. Kubica missed a single Grand Prix.

Hungary 2009: Massa's helmet (provided by Schuberth GmbH ) performed admirably, but the manufacturer improved upon the design the following race. Further refinements were made this season.

It seems to me that IndyCar is simply not adequately concerned with safety. Wheldon’s crash was not the first indication of endemic safety issues within American open-wheel racing, nor was it even the first this year. The abortive and downright shameful restart at Loudon was highly surprising in that it did not lead to any injuries. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the pit lane debacle at Kentucky, after which Panther Racing’s Erik Scheumann and K.V. Racing’s D.J. McMahon both required surgery. Considering Indy’s history of fatalities on ovals and its distinct design and performance parameters, it is perplexing how little adaptation it has exhibited in visiting tracks constructed based upon a completely different paradigm of vehicle. As long as IndyCar continues to visit tracks that are not tailored toward its specialized safety needs (cars achieving flight, speeds significantly greater than closed-cockpit series), I find it highly likely that this pattern will continue.

James: The obvious answer at first is the speed. With half of the season being on ovals, the IndyCar speed will lead to more crashes, especially more devastating crashes. All of the fatalities in IndyCar have come from on the ovals. I love IndyCar due to its high speed, high intensity, and high level of skill on ALL racing circuits. The series champion will show his great skill on short ovals, superspeedway ovals, road courses, and natural terrain street courses. So the fact that the issues come on ovals alone is the first thing to keep in mind, as F1 is road/street courses only.
The other thing we need to keep in mind is that, when crashes do occur on road/street courses, they typically are severe and scary-looking. They just don’t happen as often, so it’s tougher to critique. Those road/street course crashes look so much worse because there is no SAFER barrier. Cars are flying into a tire barrier or a concrete wall. The reason there aren’t more incidences is due to the nature of a road course, where tracks have runoff lanes designed for cars that lose their brakes. If this weren’t the case, I can say without too much exaggeration that there could be a fatality every other week. Best case in point this year is Tony Kanaan at Baltimore. His brakes failed, and if it weren’t for Helio Castroneves’s car in front of him, I’m afraid we might have two fatalities to deal with in IndyCar this year. The temporary street circuit had a mini runoff, but even after heavy contact with Helio’s car, Kanaan still went flying into and through the tire barrier in turn one.
So, long story short, ovals will breed more devastating crashes due to higher speeds and lack of runoff areas. Still, the nature of each track is so unique that you’re comparing apples and oranges…again, the great thing about IndyCar.

Will the new chassis design help IndyCar at all in terms of safety?

Ryan: To some extent it must. The bodywork/crash structure enclosing the rear wheels of the DW12 represent the first of the painful compromises IndyCar needs to make. Eventually, however, the series must reconcile a very basic issue: if it is going to race two drastically disparate kinds of tracks, it must have two equally different cars. What will be safe on a road course will never be safe on an oval and vice versa – and bodykits won’t cut it. The oval iteration must have a stronger roll-structure to protect the driver and a stronger fuel cell; essentially, everything must be over-engineered.

Wheldon's chassis post-crash: The upper crash structure is completely absent, having failed upon impact with the catch fencing. A reinforced dorsal/intake region would have prevented a driver fatality.

IndyCar is currently obsessed with mitigating costs of competing, and considering attendance isn’t what they’d like it to be, I can understand – two completely different chassis standards seems unsustainable in the sport’s current economic reality. Regardless, teams and management are going to have to decide which is more important: driver safety or marginalizing costs.

James: First, I must say I agree with Ryan and we need to name the new chassis the DW12 for all the work Dan has done for the series.
And again, I’ll get back to you on this question once I see the new chassis in action. The whole design was created for safety, especially with the in-cockpit safety. The only issue here is that Wheldon’s death was due to the way the open cockpit hit the fence. That cannot be fixed by adjusting the car. However, with the added downforce that the new cars supposedly will feature, combined with the rear wheel “fender” if you will, the likelihood of cars going airborne like Wheldon’s did is decreased significantly.

Final words:

Ryan: Don't get the wrong idea from the accusatory tone of my responses - accountability is viewed differently in F1. I am only giving my opinion, as always. Whatever IndyCar decides to do is their business, and nothing we can say will bring Dan back (unfortunately).

James: All we can do now is to wait and see. IndyCar has done everything correctly in the last two weeks. We've waited our time to let things settle and analyze all aspects of motorsports safety. We are by no means safety experts, but this is how we view everything from the fans' perspective. No matter what, it's going to be insanely tough to go to the track next year, sit at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway where I watched with a smile on my face the previous year as Dan Wheldon took his emotional victory lap around the Brickyard, now to watch with a heavy heart knowing that the Lionheart is unable to defend his crown.