Huge Crash @ Indy

[afx]

Big scary crash involving Scott Dixon. No one hurt. Red Flag

Edited May 29, 2017 by afx

[peter31a]

Yes, that was one wild ride! Amazing how that safety cell works but thank goodness it did.

[Mooneyzs]

That was a crazy wreck for sure. Glad everyone was ok. I could not believe how far Dixon's car flew.

[1930fordpickup]

With all this  plastic flying is like when a difficult Model hits the wall.  !7 to go , maybe no more wrecks.

 

[1930fordpickup]

Nice win.

 

[Kit Basher]

I did not crash at Indy,

Hugh

[afx]

I did not crash at Indy,

Hugh

Corrected-thanks.

[Craig Irwin]

A friend of mine was the photographer who got the shots. http://www.indystar.com/videos/sports/motor/indy-500/2017/05/29/photographer-injured-capturing-indycars-scott-dixon-jay-howard-indy-500-wreck/102284290/

[afx]

If you haven't seen it...

 

[Xingu]

He remained somewhat calm during the whole thing. While flying through the air he remembered to take his hands off the wheel. While waiting for the remains of his car to stop skidding the visor is up and he was looking around, almost casually. Not so many years ago, coming down on top of the wall like he did could have split the car in two. They will learn from this crash and see what worked and what did not. Future cars will be built even safer.

[Quick GMC]

Was that a fire suppression system putting that engine fire out as it was flipping? Looked like it was going to burst in flames, then you see white spray and the fire goes away. Amazing. 

[djflyer]

I was sitting right in front of where the crash started - scared the stuff out of just about everybody there. It looked for a second like Dixon and TK were both involved.  Even more amazing was how Helio managed to get through going under Dixon's flying car.

Side note - any guess how fast some company will release a kit of Sato's car?

[bbowser]

"Side note - any guess how fast some company will release a kit of Sato's car?"

My guess is not any time soon.  Indy cars seem to sell about as well as NASCARs these days .

Great race however, and glad no one was seriously injured in that crash.

 

[Art Anderson]

The closest thing to Dixon's wild ride that I can think of was Tom Sneva's incident in Turn 2, in 1974.  Sneva's McLaren  M-16C/Offy ramped over the rear tire of another car, and began flipping end over end, rotating on it's axis as it did so.  When it stopped bouncing, it was nothing but the "tub", the Offy engine and driveline, as well as all the front suspensin had been shed, the tub itself bent seriously in the middle.  Now, fortunately for Sneva, his car made no contact with anything solid after the original collision, but had it come down on the wall as did Dixon, we'd be reading of his demise in the history books today.

I cringe when I hear "race fans" complain about how "they don't build race cars like they did when I was a kid"--and I for one am very happy that they don't, as without all the development work done on driver safety, we'd have had at least two driver fatalities at Indy this Month of May.

[Art Anderson]

"Side note - any guess how fast some company will release a kit of Sato's car?"

My guess is not any time soon.  Indy cars seem to sell about as well as NASCARs these days .

Great race however, and glad no one was seriously injured in that crash.

 

Speaking as a model builder (and one who built scale models of Indy cars for about 20 years (mid-1960's through the mid-1980's, and as one who worked fulltime in a very large hobby shop here in Lafayette for 7 years, then aided them as a buyer for plastic model kits until the original owners sold the store 7 yrs after I left--THEN owned and operated my own hobby shop here in Lafayette IN from 1984-92--I can tell you that model kits of Indy cars seldom sold here (just an hour northwest of IMS) outside of the months of April, May and June.  I've heard (from hobby industry manufacturers and wholesalers back in those years that models of Indy cars seldom sold at al well outside of the Midwest--and then VERY seasonally.  Of course those of us in the retail hobby business in a radius of say, 300-400 miles of IMS sold a lot of those kits, but my contacts in the wholesale hobby industry (then largely centered in Chicago, told me the "score" on that one, as they were shipping model kits all over the US from the Windy City back then.

I think the biggest reason for this was (and likely would be today) that by the time a model kit of this year's current Indy winner could make it to market  (the lead time for bringing a new model kit to market is, at minimum, nearly a year), the bulk of the market (which is the impulse buyer) will have moved on, and generally not that interested in what is "last year's car".

My experiences tend to bear this out--from the very first "serious" 1/25 scale plastic model Indy car kits (Jim Clark's 1963 Lotus Ford and Parnelli Jones' 1963 Indy-winning Watson roadster, by the time those car kits could come to market (which was about April of 1964, the demand was already for model kits of entries for 1964--and so on it went, all the way through STP turbines, Rislone & Olsonite Eagles of 1967-68, through the McLaren M-16's and Gurney Eagle Model 6's of the early-mid-70's, even the fairly excellent Penske PC-6 kits which hit stores in 1979--even the later 1980's Indy car kits languished after their initial production runs  As late as 1985-86, I could have (and did to some extent) order in, from old stock in warehouses, 1960's and 70's Indy car kits (such as had been made), at closeout prices (and did).

Art

[afx]

With the speeds attained lap after lap it may be time to re-think racing open wheel/open cockpit cars on ovals.

[unclescott58]

Actually fun to watch. And nice to see how safe it's gotten. 

Scott

 

[Lunajammer]

Growing up, auto racing, especially Indy racing, was a bit of a blood sport. I personally knew of no women who wanted to see men take their lives into their own hands for what they deemed a foolish risk. I think the explosion of NASCAR viewership and to some extent Indy racing among families and women is because they could watch knowing they're not likely to see anyone die or get seriously hurt.