OT: Dan Whelden Killed in Indycar crash..., ... Las Vegas Motor speedway Options

[BMXerror]

RIP. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)
http://news.yahoo.com/wheldon-dies-massive...-220813739.html
Mark D.

[HAM Inc]

Not arguing a point either way, but i think Sam Hornish and Sarah Fisher both raced oval sprint cars before Indy cars.

Hornish raced Atlantics. He once said he thought sprint cars looked like fun, but despite coming from Ohio he never raced them. Fisher did for sure, but mostly midgets. At one time she held the USAC midget track record at Winchester. She signed with Walker Racing in an underfunded effort, but did manage to exceed expectations and even won a pole at Kentucky. Ed Carpenter came out of sprinters and won a couple of weeks ago driving for Sarah Fisher. Score one for the under dogs!

There have been quite a few Sprint car racers since the 70's to make runs at Indy with noteworthy results, but none that landed big-time rides, at least none who hadn't established themselves in the 60's.

In '73 or '74 outlaw archetype Jan Opperman threw rear stagger on a real back marker that two other drivers failed to get up to speed and stuck it in the show on bump day.
Roger Rager qualified for Indy in the early 80's with a stock-block Chevy that was actually based on an old school bus engine.
Tim Richmond was fast in junk and managed to not kill himself despite destroying a bunch of underfunded cars before going to NASCAR.
Sprint car great Rich Vogler raced at Indy 5 times and had landed a NASCAR Cup ride before he was killed in a USAC sprint car race in 1990 (a race which he was credited with winning because the crash occured while he was leading on the last lap).
Those guys earned respect for that back when just making the show was a really big deal, which it was right up til 1995 when 96 cars showed up for 33 spots before the split in 96.

After the CART/IRL split several great sprint car racers got a shot at Indy including Steve Kinser and Jack Hewitt, along with Super Modified great Joe Gosek. But they were one off, under funded rides. Super Modified driver Davey Hamilton showed promise of breaking through before his big injury. And of course there was midget great Stan Fox, who also got busted up badly. Before the split Billy VukovichIII did pick up a good Indy ride (though not top tier), but was killed in a supermodified before he got a chance to show how good he was on the big stage.

Some of the best racers in the country are sprint car drivers, but unfortunately those cars just don't prepare racers for Indy. Penske, Ganassi, Andretti all know this.