I've long feared that the Indycars could see something like this happen. The vehicles are worryingly old at this point, and we can probably count the upgrades since Paul Dana's fatal accident five years ago on one hand. And the format here - more cars on track than at Indianapolis including several part-time entries, on a shorter circuit with steeper banking - was always asking for trouble. Yes, NASCAR runs more cars on shorter tracks, but tin-tops are always going to be intrinsically safer in an oval-racing environment than open-wheelers.
I know the budget is low, but a change with safety in mind, or, to follow Champ Car's lead, a move away from the high ovals focus, has been overdue for a while. Hopefully the lesson will be learned, but it's tragic that it got this far and somebody had to die to jolt us back to reality.
As Alpe says, some fatalities are surprising - Ashley Cooper's fatal accident, for example, makes you fear for the neck supports because the crash seemed relatively innocuous. Others, like Gilles Villeneuve or Jeff Krosnoff, are pretty clear, and when you see them, you KNOW that it's going to end in death. Yet more are miraculous escapes - how Katherine Legge is still with us after her 2006 Road America crash is beyond me. But this? This was an absolute warzone. Dario Franchitti described coming around the following lap as being "like going through Terminator or something" with all the carnage, burning pieces of cars and medics running around. And it feels really hollow, but we do actually have to be thankful that Wheldon was the only one killed, even though it's horrible, tragic and quite difficult to actually write that, because it's no comfort to anybody out there and it doesn't change the fact that it's more horrible and tragic that Wheldon was killed.
Rest in Peace, Dan.