A Day at the Races
  • Home
  • Montreal Races
    • Montreal Grand Prix 2006
    • Montreal Grand Prix 2007
    • Montreal Grand Prix 2008
    • Montreal Nascar Nationwide 200 2007/08
    • Montreal Grand Prix 2010
    • Montreal Grand Prix 2011
    • Montreal Grand Prix 2012
    • Montreal Grand Prix 2013
    • Montreal Grand Prix 2014
  • Other Races
    • Melbourne Grand Prix 2004
    • Spa 2011
    • Trois Rivieres 2009
  • Tickets
    • Melbourne Albert Park
    • Montreal Circuit Gilles Villeneuve
    • Monaco
    • Trois Rivieres
    • Spa Francorchamps
  • Blog
  • Links
  • Forum
  • Contact
  • Wish List
    • Hungary

Death in Motorsport

10/17/2011

0 Comments

 
Dan Wheldon died tragically this weekend in the final round of the Indy car series at Las Vegas. It seems pointless to pass on my condolences to his family since I am fairly certain that they don't read my blog, but needless to say it is terrible news and news that I can't imagine having to recieve.

There seem to be two extremees of what to do about death in motorsport. No matter what we do there will always be the risk of people getting killed racing cars. When it comes down to it, motor racing is about doing fairly unwise things in machines that are designed to be as fast as possible, not as safe as possible. That being said there are people that believe that death should be present in motor racing in order to give some sort of assurance that what drivers are doing is not only bloody skillful but also bloody brave. Hemingway said "there are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games." And I get his point. These drivers we watch every week are bloody brave because they could get killed in some pretty frightening ways. I think that I am not exagerating when I say that there is also a lot of hero worship that goes on surrounding drivers that died on the track. Would Gilles Villeneuve be so well remembered if he didn't die on the track but instead went on to never win a world title. I don't mean to sound insulting to Villeneuve, I am just questioning the mentality of us fans. No doubt he was good, but do we give him more credit simply because he died. Most people wouldn't hesitate to say that Senna was better than Prost but both drivers won a title when they had each other as team mates and people are much quicker to ermember the dirty antics of living Schumacher than the dead Senna. Again, I think that we quick to want to create a hero out of people for dying while racing.

The other end of the arguement of course is that any death in motorsport is a terrible thing. I happen to like most of the drivers in Formula 1 at the moment and I don't particularly want to see any of them die in front of me. It has only happened a couple of times that I thought a driver wasn't going to come out of a wreck with the heart still pumping. Robert Kubica in Montreal and Luciano Burti in Spa in 2001. Tony Stewart said it best when asked by a reporter if he thought that Nascar should be more dangerous. I suggest you look it up on YouTube because I can't say it as well as him. What he said in effect (in a way that only Tony Stewart can) was that maybe they should cut the legs of the reporters chairs so that they could fall off and cause some entertainment for everyone. In other words, how the hell would you like it if your job was made intentionally dangerous in order to give everyone a kick.

As fans we need to remember that these drivers we watch are brave on the one hand, but on the other they are humans not heroes. They are humans with families and friends. The more that can be done to make sure they get home safe to their families and friends the better.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Tony

    I am a race fan. I cannot claim to be an expert on anything, but as a fan I am apparently the most important part of the sport. So I assume everyone wants to hear what I have to say.

    Archives

    May 2014
    November 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    September 2012
    June 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011

    Categories

    All
    2011
    2011 Champion
    2012
    2013
    Australia
    Bahrain
    Belgium
    Boring
    Canada
    Cheap
    China
    Daytona 500
    Death
    Drs
    Electric Cars
    Environmental
    Equipment
    Europe
    F1
    Fans
    Fanvision
    Fia
    Flickr
    Formula 1
    Forum
    Green Flag
    Heat
    Home Race
    Kers
    Kimi
    Lotus
    Malaysia
    Melbourne
    Montreal
    Motorracing
    Nascar
    Option
    Pirelli
    Preseason
    Pre-season
    Prime
    Rain; Red Flag
    Road Car Technolgy
    Rules
    Spa
    Spain
    Summer Holidays
    Team Orders
    Technology
    Tickets
    Tilke
    Tracks
    Turkey
    Twitter
    Tyres
    Valencia
    Vettel
    Webber
    Website
    Winter
    Withdrawal

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.