The Motorsport Thread 2011

Indy is deff way more dangerous than F1, largely due to the ovals.
Lets em reach, and sustain, mammoth speeds and its contained in an oval unlike a road course.
I used to watch it a lot years ago and it was scary to watch on TV!

100% serious, it was like 150 laps of constantly on the edge and I was shocked people weren't hurt more in any crash. NASCAR and F1 even in the worst crashes you generally expect them to be fine, which they are...Indy was honestly frightening.

Michael Schumacher hasn't retired though. 

RIP Dan Wheldon, indeed a terrible crash.

Yeah of course as a spanish I'm also sad about Lorenzo's injury, the latest news in the spanish press is that surgery went well, recovery will take a while but it should be ok. Not sure if they could saw the chopped piece of his finger or if he has lost it though.

Problem is, how do you intend to safen up Indy?

The oval nature makes it so much more difficult.
F1 engineers have proven you can not  slow down the cars, they are too damn good.
You could use a restrictor plate like in NASCAR but that leads to huge packs of cars and 20+ pileups. For indy that would be even more dangerous.

Either have to accept things as is, or to truly make it safe.....eliminate ovals and make it all road courses (except for the Indy 500). Kinda like football...er handegg, you can only make an inherently dangerous sport so safe, and then it crosses into just too far.

JJLehto wrote: Problem is, how do you intend to safen up Indy? The oval nature makes it so much more difficult. F1 engineers have proven you can not  slow down the cars, they are too damn good. You could use a restrictor plate like in NASCAR but that leads to huge packs of cars and 20+ pileups. For indy that would be even more dangerous. Either have to accept things as is, or to truly make it safe.....eliminate ovals and make it all road courses (except for the Indy 500). Kinda like football...er handegg, you can only make an inherently dangerous sport so safe, and then it crosses into just too far.

Its been a single make formula for several years, so slowing them down next year wont be such a problem, even though they will have Honda and Chevrolet supplying egines. I'm not sure what the speeds will be like next year but I've already said that the chances of interlocking wheels, and touching the back ones at all, will be severly reduced which means airial accidents shouldnt be a high risk, and the new car itself will be much stronger and safer in general (on a par with F1 standards by the sound of things, and padding around the driver that no other series has to reduce the risk of back injuries from any crash). The only other things I can suggest is a far more stringent rookie test for ovals and a complete ban on racing on the high banked speedways like Vegas, or at least on the narrow ones.

^The way the accident happened, yes true, but the tight track and number of cars made the chances far greater unfortunatly.

Kind of lost in all this, but congrats to Dario Franchitti on his 4th Indy championship. I really like him so I'm happy about it.
Must be something else to have such a great joy coupled with a tragic loss...

JJLehto wrote: sleeper wrote: JJLehto wrote: Problem is, how do you intend to safen up Indy? The oval nature makes it so much more difficult. F1 engineers have proven you can not  slow down the cars, they are too damn good. You could use a restrictor plate like in NASCAR but that leads to huge packs of cars and 20+ pileups. For indy that would be even more dangerous. Either have to accept things as is, or to truly make it safe.....eliminate ovals and make it all road courses (except for the Indy 500). Kinda like football...er handegg, you can only make an inherently dangerous sport so safe, and then it crosses into just too far. Its been a single make formula for several years, so slowing them down next year wont be such a problem, even though they will have Honda and Chevrolet supplying egines. I'm not sure what the speeds will be like next year but I've already said that the chances of interlocking wheels, and touching the back ones at all, will be severly reduced which means airial accidents shouldnt be a high risk, and the new car itself will be much stronger and safer in general (on a par with F1 standards by the sound of things, and padding around the driver that no other series has to reduce the risk of back injuries from any crash). The only other things I can suggest is a far more stringent rookie test for ovals and a complete ban on racing on the high banked speedways like Vegas, or at least on the narrow ones. The only real solution is the last thing, eliminating the high banked speedways. It's been a long standing problem with NASCAR and those restrictor plate races, the problem could be eliminated by reducing the banking at a track like Daytona (its 36 degrees or something!) Of course improving the cars is a help as well.

The problem is far more complex and serious in addition to the points noted above. Points I agree with.

The main problem is also the quality of the drivers in the field. The Indycar series is bogged down in TV contracts worth nothing and with a paltry amount of viewers. The TV channel in USA they use is not on most cable packages. Only Indy 500 has a reasonable good deal with ABC and even that coverage is pretty bad. In the media, Indycars has no coverage at all. Dan Wheldon's win at Indy 500 this year had next to no coverage in the USA and no coverage in his homeland England. Even runners in a track running school championship got more coverage than Dan Wheldon'd Indy 500 win. Only his passing has generated awareness of Dan Wheldon. A crying shame, it is.

The end result though is that Indycar have to allow in drivers with no track records (due to lack of driving skills) to speak off in the junior categories. Milka Duno is the worst and she was truly painful slow. But a substantial drivers in this year's crop of drivers was only marginally better. To use our own grading system: There was an awful lot of 2 and 1 stars drivers in this year's field of drivers. That contributed to the insane driving on the laps before the big accident - and the accident itself. 

The solution ? Nobody wants to see a 10 cars field. Everybody wants to see a 24 cars field. So we have to live with drivers with budgets they brings to teams - and no driving skills. Hence; we cannot have drivers like that driving ovals like Texas, Kentucky and Las Vegas. You don't give firearms to the chimps in your local zoo. 

So we have to get rid of the 1.5 miles ovals, introduce the Hanford device (for example) and abandon the idea of having a mass pack race like NASCAR have in Talledega. NASCAR have lower speed, enclosed wheels and closed cocpits. That's the difference between life and death.

 

   

Forgive me, but I must add this piece of (potentially) good news: