IRL coureur Paul Dana overleden.

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Op zondag 26 maart 2006 23:59 schreef alessandro88nl het volgende:
En dat ze dan vervolgens gewoon de race starten...

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Op maandag 27 maart 2006 09:07 schreef Kleffe_Dop het volgende:
Het ziet er inderdaad heel raar uit, de andere 4/5 coureurs rijden hem relatief rustig voorbij. Dana klapt er echt vol tegenaan.
En over die spotter heeft Vitalogy gelijk, die geeft z'n coureur in principe door wat er allemaal gebeurt op de baan. Daarnaast knipperen er ook nog eens gele lichten om coureurs te waarschuwen in het geval van een ongeluk.

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Carpenter mag nog van geluk spreken dat Dana zich in de achterkant boorde van z'n bolide, bij een frontale klap zou het voor Carpenter heel anders afgelopen kunnen zijn.

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The Sad, Cold Truth

With all due respect to the deceased and his family, Paul Dana was in over his head; the victim of a system where people have been buying rides at the highest level for more than 25 years.

A few weeks ago in an Indianapolis gym, Paul Dana was working out and we began talking about his return to racing and, in particular, his place in racing.

"You don't think I belong in an Indy car do you?," he asked. "I know you don't and you're entitled to your opinion but I think this is the year I'll prove to everybody that I do."

Dana will never get that chance. He lost his life here Sunday morning in an accident that more or less confirmed he was out of his depth at 200 mph. Some eight seconds after Ed Carpenter hit the wall in first minutes of practice, Dana roared onto the scene running wide open.

The replay shows five or six cars passed Carpenter's car before Dana drilled it at 176 mph with a shattering impact.

"I was hard on the brake and downshifting when I saw this blur go by me on the left," said veteran Scott Sharp, who reacted to the yellow light and his spotter's command to slow down.

Why Dana didn't slow down remained a mystery long after the Indy Racing League season opener at Homestead-Miami Speedway had finished. IRL and Rahal Letterman team officials said there was no communication problem with track lights or the spotter.

The best explanation was also the coldest.

"He just didn't know what the hell he was doing," said a former Indy 500 winner.

It's harsh to critique a young man's actions a few hours after he's passed on but unfortunately Dana is an example of what's happened to open wheel racing at this level.

The 30-year-old native of St. Louis was a likeable journalism grad from Northwestern with a passion for auto racing. He began competing in small formula cars in the late '90s, when he was also covering the CART series for Autoweek.

Now think about that for just a minute, He was writing about Michael Andretti and Al Unser Jr. for a national magazine and, next month, he was going to be competing against them at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

That kind of Walter Mitty scenario cannot happen in baseball, basketball, football, hockey or golf. You've got to earn a place on the roster, you just can't walk up and buy your way onto a foursome with Tiger Woods at Augusta.

But people have been buying rides at the highest level of American open wheel racing for more than 25 years.

In USAC's glory days of the '50s-'60s-'70s, it was damn tough to get a national big car license, as it was called. A driver had to spend a few years in midgets or sprints, then run Trenton, Phoenix and Milwaukee in an Indy car and then be "nominated" by a USAC star in order to be allowed to take his ROOKIE TEST at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

It was a tough screening process but it kept the field at Indy a lot closer to the 33 best drivers than it does nowadays.

Dana didn't replace Vitor Meira on Rahal's team because he was a better driver, he simply brought money in the form of sponsor Ethanol. In today's sorry economy for IRL and Champ Car, Rahal needed to bring Dana on board to keep his three-car team solvent.

Paul Dana certainly wasn't the first or the worst to ever buy his way into an Indy car. We've seen Patrick Bedard, Dale Whittington, Jack Miller, Paul Jasper, Dennis Vitolo, Randy Lewis, Lyn St, James .... there's a long list of people who were much better at marketing than they were at driving.

And, truth be told, Dana followed protocol to the letter. He spent two years in the IRL's Pro Series, won a race and a pole position and finished second in the point standings. Of course the IPS and it's wide open formula and small fields is hardly a yardstick for determining talent.

But it's the stepladder series to Indy cars and the IRL couldn't deny Dana a chance to pursue his dream of competing in the Indy 500. Not even after he crashed last May while practicing for the Indy 500. He'd worked hard and hustled a nice sponsorship in Ethanol.

The bottom line of this tragedy is that it could not have been prevented, not in today's scheme of things in open wheel. Dana, who had qualified 9th for Sunday's IRL opener, wasn't a hopeless hazard that had everybody totally terrified to run next to him.

Having said that, the majority of veterans were wary of Dana's pedigree. He lacked the miles of high speed experience necessary to drive one of those IRL missiles in close quarters. And those instincts that come with miles, like looking down the track for trouble.

The general feeling in the IRL paddock was that Paul Dana was a nice kid with a driving passion who was over the moon to be running an Indy car. And also over his head. Sadly, they both were true.

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Op maandag 27 maart 2006 11:07 schreef Gitanki het volgende:
Het is inderdaad het risico van de sport, maar de IRL series zijn toch een stuk onveiliger door die snelle banen.

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Op maandag 27 maart 2006 13:32 schreef Atreidez het volgende:
Een erge crash en een beroerde afloop voor Dana. Het verbaast me wel ontzettend dat je hem niet ziet reageren, ook niet vlak voor hij erop knalt. De auto van Carpentier staat toch al wel redelijk stil en Dana doet geen enkele poging hem te ontwijken, ook niet vlak voor de impact. Spotters worden veel gebruikt, maar meer tijdens races natuurlijk voor het inhalen en of je high of low moet rijden. In deze situatie zou het lampensysteem duidelijk moeten aangeven dat er een full course yellow is en dan ga je rustiger rijden...

Anyways, RIV -
[afbeelding]

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Op maandag 27 maart 2006 09:06 schreef mikezwet het volgende:
Het is trouwens wel een rare crash. Ik bedoel, carpenter is al lang gecrashed en er zijn al coureurs die langzamer voorbij rijden, spotter hebben de tijd om een coureur te waarschuwen en toch rijd Dana er vol in.

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Regiotap, de spotter heeft Dana direct van de crash op de hoogte gesteld. Bobby Rahal en de IRL hebben dit bevestigd. Overigens beschikken alle IRL bolides over een waarschuwingslampje zodra er een neutralisatiie is, dat direct aangaat.. Ooggestuige Buddy Lazier had het vermoeden dat Dana te snel was. Overigens was de CV van Dana ten opzichte van Wheldon, Castroneves etc. wel erg beperkt.
Wel triest dat de vrouw van Dana tijdens een kerkdienst van het onheil op de hoogte gesteld werd, zo las ik op diverse sites.

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Op maandag 27 maart 2006 13:53 schreef ondeugend het volgende:
Ik ben benieuwd of het duidelijk gaat worden wat er nou precies misging.

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Op maandag 27 maart 2006 13:43 schreef Atreidez het volgende:
Ik heb net die lap gelezen en ze zeggen dus dat hij snelheidservaring miste en dat in combinatie met rijden in kleine ruimtes (tussen andere auto's dus). Kan natuurlijk ook een verkeerd aangeleerde techniek zijn, maar het blijft belangrijk om verder voor je uit te kijken. En als je 360 km/u gaat moet je wel flink ver vooruit kijken ...