IndyCar: Memoir on Dan Wheldon's death from January 2013

The late IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon passed away eight years ago today. The following is a memoir written about his passing nearly seven years ago.

Eight years ago today, Sunday, October 16, 2011, IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon was tragically killed at the age of 33 in a 15-car crash in the 2011 season finale at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

I was a middle school student at the time, and the following year, I received an assignment in English class that I will never forget, and for once for a reason other than it seemed like another useless essay about Romeo and Juliet.

At this point in my school career, I had no desire to read Shakespeare or write an analysis of the meaning of useless poetry that literally has no meaning other than what teachers make up for no other reason than to pass time; plenty of good paint drying somewhere in the world.

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I don’t even remember what, exactly, the assignment itself was (ironic, I know, since I literally just said I’d never forget it) aside of the fact that it had to be a memoir of some kind and it had to feature various elements of something to do with middle school writing that I’ll never actually use in the real world.

Nevertheless, I do remember that when I got it, I knew that it was an opportunity to write about something other than the Montague vs. Capulet rivalry or whatever was going on with that in the 1100s or sometime around then.

But on a far more serious note, I knew what I had to do it on, and that was the late Dan Wheldon, who had passed away just over a year ago at the time, and cleaning out my old computer a few months ago, I happened to run across it.

The following memoir was completed on Monday, January 21, 2013.

October 16th, 2011. It was going to be the absolute best day of my life. The final race of the 2011 IZOD Indycar Series was at a high-speed tri-oval track in Las Vegas, Nevada. The battle for the 2011 championship was as tight as cattle.

10:30 AM. Church had just ended. I was thrilled that all I had to do now was wait for the big 4:00 race. That was the only thing I had to do. But, then it hit me that I had to wait for 5 1/2 hours, which wasn’t exactly a drive from Reading to Allentown.

3:30 PM. The race broadcast had just come on Channel 6, ABC. The butterflies in my stomach had started to fly quicker as the seconds ticked by. I marveled at the amazing, giant 1.5-mile oval as it was shown on the television. Five hours down, thirty minutes to go before the green flag would wave. Only 1.8 thousand more seconds to wait. Tick, tock.

4:00 PM. I turned up the volume so that the television blared the most famous words in motorsports. “Drivers start your engines!” proclaimed a young man as the field of 34 cars roared to life in a split second. The butterflies in my stomach continued to fly, but their flight speed increased each second as I watched the 34 well-built machines circle the track for a few warm-up laps.

4:05 PM. The drivers lined up in 17 rows side by side off of turn four. “Green! Green! Green!” proclaimed the spotter of one of the cars. At once, 34 roaring monsters began to accelerate. 180. 190. 200. 210. 220 miles per hour they all went as they rumbled into turn one. The margin was 2.5 seconds from 1st place to 34th place. The field was packed tight, with the two championship contenders, Dario Franchitti and Will Power, running in 17th and 18th positions, respectively.

4:10 PM. The television had gone to one of their on-board cameras with one of the cars. The car they currently had an on-board camera on was the car of series veteran Dan Wheldon. He had started in the back, 34th position, and had advanced 10 spots in as many laps. As I watched from his point of view the car circling the track, I saw something out of the corner of my eye that caught my attention. Gray clouds began rising up from a few cars way in front of Wheldon. The race broadcasters saw this too, so they switched from the onboard camera back to the normal race view mode. The screen went black, or so I thought. But in the midst of all that blackness, I saw red, orange, and yellow. Then I saw what all of those colors were. The crash began, full-force.

Cars flying through the air

Smoking

Spinning across the track

Smoking

Cars flying through the air

Splitting apart like wood

Cars flying through the air

Smoking

Screeching across the track

Smoking

Cars flying through the air

Sparks and flames awakening

Cars flying through the air

Smoking

Cars smacking the wall at 220 miles per hour

Smoking

Cars flying through the air

Fire being spat across the track

Cars flying through the air

Smoking

Smoking.

4:15 PM. The race was stopped as the red flag came out on lap 13 of 200 after fifteen cars, the No. 12 car of Will Power, the No. 77 car of Dan Wheldon, the No. 4 car of JR Hildebrand, the No. 14 car of Vitor Meira, the No. 83 car of Charlie Kimball, the No. 30 car of Pippa Mann, the No. 8 car of Paul Tracy, the No. 22 car of Townsend Bell, the No. 17 car of Wade Cunningham, the No. 57 car of Tomas Scheckter, the No. 18 car of James Jakes, the No. 19 car of Alex Lloyd, the No. 59 car of EJ Viso, the No. 44 car of Buddy Rice, and the No. 15 car of Jay Howard had been demolished during the chaotic wreck. All 19 of the remaining cars that were intact drove into the pits and removed themselves from their cars. All of the drivers, even those involved in the wreck, were asked to attend a brief drivers’ meeting. All but one of the drivers were in attendance. The one driver who wasn’t there was being flown by helicopter to a nearby hospital.

4:20 PM. It was announced that the driver who was airlifted to a nearby hospital was Dan Wheldon. Was he okay? Was he injured? Would he ever drive an IndyCar again? Those were some of the flashing thoughts that conquered my brain for the next hour and forty minutes.

6:00 PM. The “race” broadcast was over with still no word on how Dan Wheldon was doing. ABC News came on in a flash. I sat watching as ABC News reported on the Philadelphia Eagles game from earlier that day. I figured there had to be something reported about the colossal IndyCar wreck from a few hours before. So, I continued to watch the broadcast patiently.

6:05 PM. I continued to wait for even just a blurb about the IndyCar wreck.

6:10 PM. The broadcast had begun talking about a robbery as I was now getting annoyed that nothing had been said about the wreck.

6:15 PM. I ran to my computer and turned on IndyCar Radio.

6:20 PM. I listened to the IndyCar Radio broadcast which only mentioned the race and the crash.

“IndyCar is very sad to announce that Dan Wheldon has passed away from unsurvivable injuries. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family today. IndyCar, its drivers and team owners, has decided to end the race. In honor of Dan Wheldon, the drivers have decided to do a five-lap salute in his honor. It will take place in approximately ten minutes. Thank you,” stated the CEO of IndyCar, Randy Bernard.

6:25 PM. As I listened to the rumble of the nineteen cars circle the track for five laps, I couldn’t help but think to myself; Why did this happen? Wasn’t this supposed to be a day of celebration for Dario Franchitti, who won the championship considering Will Power, the other title contender, had been involved in the wreck? I knew that the long 5-month offseason would be a long and hard time for all of the drivers and teams. I knew that getting back in the car the race after a fatal accident, even though it had happened five months earlier, would be tough. All of the drivers knew that it was a very rare occurrence and that it cannot let it bother them forever.

“It’s a fear that we all have in the back of our heads. That day it was brought to the front. You have to put it to the back of your head,” said Marco Andretti, one of the drivers not involved in the wreck.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought Dan in the last four months. My job when I get in the car is not to do that. My job is to clear my mind, to focus 100% on the job at hand and if you can’t do it, you don’t want to do it, and you’re not able to do it, unfortunately you’re probably in the wrong business,” stated Dario Franchitti, 4-time IndyCar Series champion.

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After hearing this news, I knew that I and all of the IndyCar drivers just had to wait for the 2012 season, even if it would be a long and hard time.

IndyCar: Memoir on Dan Wheldon’s death from January 2013

By Asher Fair | Oct 16, 2019

The late IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon passed away eight years ago today. The following is a memoir written about his passing nearly seven years ago.