Bad accident in IRL results in Paul Dana's death (modified)

[TorsinAHog]

There was a terrbile accident in the IRL today in the final practice for todays race.  One driver (a rookie) is in cirtical condition (per ESPN) the other seems to be ok.

http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/news/story?seriesId=1&id=2384873

[pigfeet]

Prayers to Dana's family

[hogfan13]

I SAW THAT. HE SAID ALL PEOPLE WITH WEAK STOMACHS LOOK AWAY

It said Dana died

[pioneerhog]

Not in Critical condition he is dead.

[TorsinAHog]

http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/news/story?seriesId=1&id=2384873

You are correct. They updated the article after I posted it. That is TERRIBLE.

[pioneerhog]

Prayers go out to his family. I have been a race fan for many years and I am not sure that I have seen an impact that hard. This is just horrible for his family and the racing world as a whole.

[pioneerhog]

If you want to see the video of the wreck then you might want to hurry and watch it, they usually don't keep showing video like this for long.

[TorsinAHog]

During the video they said the spotter told him to stay low to avoid the wreck.  I bet the spotter feels as bad as anyone.  Racing is a great but dangerous sport.  Its amazing there arent more severe injurgies given the speeds and number of wrecks. 

[PigMan]

I'm not a big racing fan.  Who is Paul Dana?  Was there something special about him other than he was a race driver?

[pioneerhog]

Yeah the spotter told him to stay low and at that time the car was up high, if he would have told him to stay high the car might not have ever come down the track and he might have hit him up high. It is just one of those things in racing, sometimes they slide down in front of the driver and there isn't time for the spotter to tell them to change their path. Dana was a rookie getting ready to start his rookie season in the IRL. It really doesn't matter if a driver is good or not, if they die it is a bad thing, he was something special to someone if it wasn't anyone but his family.

[TorsinAHog]

He was a rookie.

http://www.rahal.com/drivers/dana/index.jsp