RIP

 

Where was it a few years ago, Texas? Where the drivers actually stood up and said it was too fast and too dangerous, actually sent all the spectators home and wouldn't race.

 

Dan was awesome my friend and I met him at Seibkins at Road America when he 1st came over and was looking fir his 1st ride... He sat with us for atleast 2 hrs and just talked about life and racing.... We bumped into him again a couple years later he was the same pollite guy and asked if we had been back to Seibkens.... RIP.

 

Yes it was. In fact that event was a little different then the Vegas issue.

The CART group were going 235 on the straights and scrubbing off speed through the corners down to around 225-228 and because of a tire change and better track conditions (different to when they did a tire test months earlier) the drivers were pulling G's that they had never experienced before or since.

I was at this event with a friend of PT's with me and noticed he took forever to get out of the car - in fact his lead mechanic asked him twice to get out of the car as they needed to tow the car off pit lane and he responded 'wait' and he got out at least five minutes after they had first asked him to. (dizzy)

That was the first practice. Tracy later told his engineer that two other drivers mentioned being sick after getting out of the cars and one actually admitted to brown outs after about five laps. I can't recall if it was Andretti who went to Wally D. or CART's medical team but there was a drivers meeting held before the afternoon's 2nd practice session that only the drivers and doctors attended and Steve O. asked the drivers as a group if any of them were having trouble from the G loading. Slowly many hands went up and surprisingly it was the guy's who one would think wouldn't have problems (small, low weight drivers) who were having the most issues.

It was the recommendation of the CART medical team to the chief steward that the race be postponed (CART never ran again here) as the basis for the weekend coming to a halt.

The track owner called the drivers sissies or something stupid and then sued CART for which he got some money (I have ZERO respect for this clown).

So it wasn't that the drivers stood up and stated they wouldn't run as most of them were too busy being ill in the back of the transporters! It was a moot point.

The post-mortem on the event was that a 3 mph change in corner speeds made a huge difference in how the drivers felt behind the wheel. Combined with the number of times per minute they were under load and the duration of G's - a USAF expert later said that he estimated that the avg experienced person with G loading of about 4.5 G's would have blacked out after 25 laps. No wonder that in the 1st practice the most laps seen in a row was 7...

So to risk highjacking charges in this thread (sorry) that's the background to the 'why' that race was cancelled. The fear of a car going out of control because of an incapacitated drivers (after they were told about the issues) was a moral and legal decision.

The Vegas Indy Car was a different situation where the drivers were worried about the skill of some of the part time drivers as well as some of the full time drivers being able to be near on perfect for every single lap. Consider the fact that they had one more car then they race at Indy on a track that was shorter. 1.5 miles instead of Indy's 2.5 miles. They knew that they would be surrounded by cars with perhaps inches to spare.

The G loading was a small factor as unlike the CART Lola's - the Indy Cars are a flat bottom design without the ground affect tunnels of the Lola era. I do question if *some* of these part timers could complete a 300 mile race with the Vegas banking before suffering from the G loading anyway.

What factors went against the drivers refusing to drive in this event? Unlike the era where there were two major open wheel series where drivers and teams were being wooed to join or move over to each series - the era we are now in with one open wheel series here along with a poor economy and few sponsors pretty much puts paid to the notion that a driver has an opinion to race or not. Sure they can say no - but unless they are the top dogs in the series they most likely won't ever race in the series again.

The lead drivers have to race as there is a Championship at stake. Short of someone installing 2 foot speed bumps on the main straight - these people were going to race.

The responsibility lays with the series and their leadership. Fail.

If you show people a better way - they usually will follow - it's called leadership. Lacking.

Having a 5 million dollar silly event during what you could surmise way back in Feb might be a battle for the championship right up to the wire was head shaking stupid. We don't call him CEO Bull for nothing...

The best thing that this series can do now is make sure Dan's family are taken care of. The next best thing they can do is LISTEN to their drivers! This was the second time they ignored drivers and the result was crashes. The third thing they can do is fire the CEO and his chief of competition. I would also mandate a no go speed of anything over 190mph on short ovals and no oval over 10 degrees.

Make some good come out of this tragedy - don't let it be same old same old.

Again - sorry for the highjack. I met Dan a few times, first time in F2000, again when he was running in Atlantic's. Really nice guy. What a waste.

 

Very interesting and insightful post, thanks for that. ^^
I still question the prudence of open wheelers on ovals at all.
Personally, I don't even watch those races, but I sure liked it when they ran at the Glen.

 

Obviously a different scenario altogether, but remember the F1 fiasco at Indy where all the drivers (except Ferrari's who were using different tires IIRC) refused to race.

 

Actually... <sorry>

Michelin went to the FIA and told them they could not guarantee that their race rubber would hold up going through the last corner onto the main straight - the side loads were too great. They had already had massive failures earlier, one of which led to the Williams of Ralf Schumacher having a huge crash on the front straight as his tire delaminated. <I watched all of this from the blue flag position at corner one>

Michelin suggested a chicane just before this last corner. FIA went to the Bridgestone supplied teams and asked them to support this track change. Ferrari said NO. There is a clause in the Concorde agreement which governs F1 that allows changes (such as track and car changes) with the support of the 'majority' of the teams. In fact some insiders suggest that Bernie wanted to embarrass Michelin (for reasons of a commercial nature) and did not use the 'Force Majour' clause allowing the Race Director to take all actions under and for safety reasons. It was a major reason why Michelin left F1 and Bridgestone ended up as the sole tire supplier (at the time).

There was no Driver boycott. In fact many of the Michelin running drivers said they would pit every 10 laps if they had to in order to still compete. It was the fact that there wouldn't be any insurance if a tire exploded and the resulting crash injured a driver or spectator that finally ended any ideas of racing even a reduced number of laps per set of tires. The Michilin teams started the parade lap and then pulled in before the start just to embarrass the Bridgestone runners and mainly Ferrari. It all came back to haunt F1 as Tony George threw them out of the place. <And rightly so.>

 

Great post, I tend to really like reading your stuff on the Canadian forum too.

I share your hope that IndyCar moves significantly to take care of Dan's family. Perhaps they can look to that $5M purse that Dan was chasing (to share with a fan)...

 

^^ informative posts Doug, thanks

 

FIA has been testing closed cockpit for F1

 

Paul Tracy speaks about the accident:

 

All very good points!

In the late 90's then CART had a solution for the super speedways that worked in keeping the cars from packing up but yet at the same time promote passing. A component that was developed in our wind tunnel under the direction of Mark Handford, a brilliant aerodynamicyst, that mounted to the underside of the rear wing (again, speedway config only) that effectively punched a huge hole in the air creating a massive aero wake for the car behind. What it did was effectively spread out the cars AND promote passing.

One advantage of those days with 900+ hp and at one time five chassis makers, four engine suppliers and two tire companies competing, is that the cars performed differently at different segments of the circuit yet yielded very similar lap times.

I guess what I am trying to say is after a decade with the same car, a spec car formula, enough race engineers, crew and drivers have worked and driven for so many different teams all of the speed secrets are so well known that most have arrived at a similar setup making the cars so very equal, 'maxed-out' if you will. Same power, same chassis, same aero, same tires = same performance.

Give 'em more power, less aero and force drivers to downshift, force them to brake on the ovals.

Watching the Texas IRL race over the years has always been exciting, but man, talk about two hours of cringing -- and I am not the one in the car!!

I never had the opportunity to work on Dan's cars but did build a few that he raced in his Atlantic days. I am close to one of his previous race engineers that never had anything bad to say about Danny boy. RIP Dan

 

Scott Elkins sent me a note about an Auction Graham Rahal is organizing for Dan's kids. Will post everyone up as soon as I get details.

 

Glen, didnt realize you know Scott - cool!

Yes, Rahal is organizing an auction with proceeds going to a good cause.

 

I would love to know more about this auction. I love buying cool stuff, but I love even more when I can justify it as "for a good cause", and I can currently think of no better cause.