Originally posted by deadwolfbones Pretty horrible, and simply a consequence of racing open-wheeled, open-cockpit cars on a track like that one.
I'd love to see IndyCar go all road course and have the Indy 500 be a stand-alone event a la Le Mans.
Either that or detune the engines to reduce horsepower for these 1.5 mile tri-oval tracks. Las Vegas, Chicago, Kentucky, etc. were designed for NASCAR type stock cars and a 3500 pound full bodied car flying up into the catch fence like that will suffer much less damage than composite, open cockpit car. Carl Edwards went in to the fence that way at Talladega a couple of years ago as did Brad Kesolowski at Atlanta (payback from Carl). Both walked away cussing the other. Indy cars have been too fast for several years now and something needs to be done to slow them down. I'm sure that will happen now. When Dale was killed at Daytona, the HANNS device was mandated and NASCAR began requiring tracks to install SAFER barriers. When Scott Kaletta was killed at Englishtown, NHRA went from 1/4 mile down to 1000 feet to give racers more shutdown room. Sad that it takes a death sometimes to wake up the governing bodies in car racing and from what I've heard, Barnhart has taken a lot of criticism from drivers, fans and owners lately about decisions IndyCars has made.
CW