Motor racing is safer now than it ever has been, but it’s still a dangerous sport. And with such tremendous forces at play, that means it can sometimes be fatal. Unfortunately we received an apt demonstration of that much today when Bryan Clauson died.
The 27-year-old Californian was a force to be reckoned with in dirt-track racing and a budding speedway driver as well. He won multiple USAC national championships in midget and sprint cars and competed in Indy Lights, IndyCars and the NASCAR Xfinity Series, where he proved among the most successful rookies and served as a Chip Ganassi Racing test driver.
Last season he competed in the Indianapolis 500 for the third time, leading the race for three laps and finishing a career-best 23rd. That same day he won the feature sprint car race at the Kokomo Speedway, also in Indiana.
This year he set for himself the astoundingly ambitious goal of competing in 200 races in one season. He was in the midst of his 116th on Saturday night, the Belleville Nationals midget race in Kansas, and was in the lead when he was forced into the fence and his car rolled several times and landed on its side.
After another competitor hit his car’s cockpit cage, it reportedly took rescue workers 30 minutes to cut off the cage and extract Clauson, who was airlifted to hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he was listed in critical condition. Sadly he did not recover from the injuries he sustained in the crash and perished on Sunday evening. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.
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