Dan Wheldon died while competing for the IndyCar World Championship title last night and now video and photos of the crash have been released.
The 33-year-old professional racer was amidst a 15-car pileup that took place at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway when his car flew into the air, smashed into a fence and caught fire.
Wheldon was airlifted to University Medical Center immediately but it was announced about 2 hours later, by Indy Car CeO Randy Bernard that he had died.
Danica Patrick, who was participating in the race as the last IndyCar race of her career, described the aftermath of the crash as “like a movie scene which they try to make as gnarly as possible … it was debris everywhere across the whole track. You could smell the smoke. You could see the billowing smoke on the back straight from the car. There was a chunk of fire that we were driving around. You could see cars scattered.”
Three other drivers involved in the crash were injured but did not sustain fatal injuries.
Wheldon won the Indy 500 earlier this year. He leaves behind wife Susie Behm and two sons, Sebastian, 2, and Oliver, 7 months.
So sad.
Here’s the Dan Wheldon crash video from the IndyCar 2011:
