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IndyCar driver Justin Wilson in coma after wreck at Pocono

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LTC8K6

LTC8K6

Lifer
He was hit in the head with the nose piece of another car.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/hunter-reay-wins-teammate-wilson-airlifted-track-223050664--irl.html

IndyCar driver Justin Wilson was in a coma and in critical condition after sustaining a head injury when he was hit by a large piece of debris that broke off a car in the crash-filled race at Pocono Raceway.

The debris broke off Sage Karam's car when Karam spun into the wall Sunday. Wilson's car veered left and directly into an interior wall. Wilson was swarmed by the safety crew and airlifted by helicopter.

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Heard this morning that he passed away. Very sad to hear that. You can be sure that Indy Car will be pushing for closed cockpit cars very soon. They are thinking about it, but so far no regulations or method to implement it. Only real issue is being sure the safety teams or driver can easily open the cockpit for egress in the event of an accident or fire. Also, the driver area would need to be air conditioned and a cool suit used on the driver, otherwise it would get way to warm in there. But it is needed from a safety point of view. If Wilson's car had that, he would still be with us today.
 
The news reports have been making a big deal of the open cockpit in IRL and F1.

Masa came pretty close a few years ago and Alonso came pretty close to shearing of Kimi's head earlier this year.

I do hope this doesn't put the IRL and/or F1 in the position of having to fully enclose the cockpit.


Brian
 
r.i.p. to wilson, bianchi and probably several others

for what it's worth, i don't like closed cockpits on open-wheeled cars. nor do i like the semi-enclosed wheels of indy. either go open cockpit, open wheels or closed, closed like gt and prototypes.

a closed cockpit, closed wheel car may (or may not) be safer, but it is not safe, as the fatal crash of allan simonsen at le mans 2013 demonstrates. the danger element is ever present, and should be.
 
The folks that drive open wheel cars are more careful to avoid or limit contact because contact can result in air time. Fully closed cars permit much more contact and in effect encourage it -- see NASCAR.

There's no way to eliminate risks in racing be it open wheel or fully closed. I do think that the sanctioning bodies do a pretty good job of reviewing incidents and making appropriate changes when necessary. Racing is vastly safer today than the 50's when a single crash killed 83 people (1955 Le Mans). The tracks have been redesigned or modified or eliminated from the series when they couldn't be improved sufficiently.

In Justin's case I can't think of anything that could have been done to prevent the fatal injury.


Brian
 
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