The IndyCar series has lost a great driver and notoriously gentle man, Justin Wilson, who died yesterday after suffering major head trauma during prior day’s race at Pocono Raceway.
Wilson, 37, was born in Sheffield, UK, and throughout his career he even ended up in Formula 1, where he raced for Minardi and Jaguar and managed to score 1 point in 16 races he participated – neither of the teams he raced for were ever any good.
During Sunday’s tragic Indy race where Wilson was injured was really a case of plain bad luck… He didn’t crash into another car, but was actually hit by the airborne nose cone from another car that had crashed – the one driven by Sage Karam.
In the footage below, you can see it unfold – Wilson is hit in the head and he loses all control of his vehicle. He was knocked unconscious, entered a coma and the next day he was dead.
So it was the debris that got him, and the worst part of the debris at that, as the nose cone is very rigid and quite heavy. You can see just how much air it gets after it makes contact with Wilson’s helmet.
The practice of making racing cars disintegrate to dissipate impact forces, while efficient in culling crashes, has downsides like this.
Aside from his racing career, he was also part of the team over at TFL Car which made a tribute video to celebrate his contribution to them.