A Prayer for Paul Dana's Family and Indy fans all over....

[Girlw/glass]

I just wanted to put out my heartfelt support for all those who are fans of Indy racing and to the family of Paul Dana, who tragically lost his life during a practice run at Homestead this weekend. I hold such high respect for those men and women who put thier life on the line for the love of the sport and to put on a great show for us fans so many weekends of the year. My prayers are with his wife and family. I could not even begin to put myself in their shoes. His death was far to early in his career and it pains me to think where he could have gone with such a great team on his side.

[IndyJeff]

Thanks Tracy, all of Indy Car fans are mourning this loss. The comparison between this and Tony Renna are so ironic. Both relatively young drivers, both had been in less than top equipment in their earlier races in this series. Each landed a ride with a top notch team only to be fatally injured in a crash. Ironically too, neither crash was during racing conditions.
There will be questions about this incident, why did he fail to slow down when the yellow came out. Every other driver received the warning lamp on their steering wheel, heard from the spotters or the IRL officials and saw the yellow lights mounted on the walls.

Each time a yellow comes out you will hear on the scanner, YELLOW, YELLOW, YELLOW, on the offical IRL channel which is monitored by the teams and safety crews. No matter if it is a crash or debris on the course the same warning is called out.

RIP
Paul Dana
1975-2006

[Girlw/glass]

I was curious about the circumstances myself. I read an article on aol.com that quoted Rahal saying that there were no communications issues. I just didnt get how 5 guys could get by him but Dana plowed right into him like he never saw it coming.....it's so scary to think of what could/did go wrong and even scarier to think that we may never really know how/why it happened. I just feel for his loved ones and his teammates and team. It's a wake up call for sure. God Bless them!

[IndyJeff]

Thhings like this happen, for whatever reason, who knows. They just happen. It is not only rookies and inexperienced drivers that it happens to either.

1. Alex Zanardi lost both legs above the knee in a crash where he spun and was t-boned by Alex Tagliani
2. Mario Andretti, after passing a stalled car and safety vehicles at least twice at Toronto ( I think it was there) decided that he would whip around a saftey vehicle at the scene. Mario sheared off the whole right side of his car and then proceeded to blame officals.
3 Jaques Villenueve came around a turn at Phoenix and t-boned a car which had spun and was almost stopped.

Each of the above incidents were during a race and this latest one was during a final practice on race morning. So sad that he finally made it with a great team and never got the opportunity to see the fruits of all his work to get there.

If you do like racing, try the IRL. I know several guys who were dyed in the wool NASCAR fans and after they watched their first IRL became huge fans. Close racing, wheel to wheel at 200+ mph is exciting as it gets.