IndyCar racing: Wheldon’s death renders title win meaningless for Franchitti

Nothing prepared him for the mindnumbing sickness that followed the brutal death of his close friend Dan Wheldon. The 33-year-old Englishman was confirmed dead two hours after his horrific crash on the 11th lap round the high speed, 1.5-mile speedway. What should have been a career-defining moment for Franchitti — his fourth IndyCar title in five years, a period that also included two Indy500 wins — instead dissolved into uncontrollable sobbing as the reality of Wheldon’s death hit home. Today he will attend his friend’s funeral in St Petersburg, Florida.

Motorsport, we all know, is dangerous. Thankfully deaths are rare. That rarity though somehow makes any fatality even more shocking.

We have grown used to seeing drivers emerge unscathed from high speed, explosive crashes. As safety technology has increased, we as spectators have become desensitised to the risks these drivers take at speeds in excess of 220mph.

Recently we watched, glued to TV monitors and screens, as Dumfries racer Allan McNish somehow climbed out of his utterly wrecked Audi R18TDI at Le Mans in June. Anyone who witnessed the Scots racer’s car disintegrate around him would be lying if they didn’t admit they thought he might not have come out of that car alive. That he did is testament to the safety of modern-day race cars.

It’s too early for specific details to emerge of Wheldon’s crash, but we know that the double Indy500 winner and 2005 IndyCar champ was killed by a blow to the head.

So where now for the sport; and Franchitti? The sport will, of course, continue. Danger is one of the realities that fuels any drivers’ desire to race. As the 38-year-old Scot told me on more than one occasion: “It’s what we do as racing drivers. It’s part of motorsport; it’s part of our life.”

The danger, the fatal danger — the kind that can take a young man’s life in the prime of his career, leaving Wheldon’s wife Susie, two young children and a trail of tears throughout the racing world — is always there.

Unlike Formula 1 and so many track-based motorsport formulae, IndyCar is supremely dangerous because of its use of high-speed ovals. Lap after lap, cars dice within inches of each other at more than 200mph knowing that within touching distance there is an unforgiving concrete wall and a metal catch fence – no gravel trap, no run-off area, simply hard reality.

IndyCar differs from Formula 1 in another, important way.

Formula 1 drivers rarely mix with each other. They are corporate individuals who do a clinical job. They test; they qualify; they race; they go home. Job done.

IndyCar drivers are a family. Always have been; always will be. When IndyCar came to Rockingham for the first Indy race at the Northamptonshire circuit in September, 2001, it was the first race after Alex Zanardi had lost both his legs in a horror crash in the previous round just days before at the Lausitzring in Germany. Franchitti, surrounded by IndyCar stars, led the press conference at Rockingham. The mood was sombre. They were all raw from Zanardi’s accident.

As a group, of course, they raced hard against each other, but they also ate together; they laughed together; they socialised together; they had fun together. Franchitti spoke on Sunday evening, just hours after Wheldon’s death, about his former rival, team-mate and friend.

“One of the two times Dan and I fell out, Tony [Kanaan], Brian [Herta] and I brought him to the hotel and gave him a good talking to and his eyes were like this, huge and out on stalks,” the Scot explained.

“Dan had lots of Irish in him from his father’s side, but I think he had some Scottish in him too as he never bought dinner or anything! He was the little brother we didn’t want! Then he signs for Chip Ganassi and asks us if we were in New York and said ‘let’s go for dinner, I’m buying’. We gave his credit card a beating and proceeded to order lots of expensive things. The bill came to $5,000 and he didn’t flinch. We’re going to miss him.”

Franchitti too has been here before. In 1999 at the California Speedway, again in the season finale — the championship he eventually lost to Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya — Franchitti’s closest friend on the circuit, Canadian Greg Moore, was killed in a high-speed crash.

The memory of that day never leaves Franchitti. When he won his first Indy500 in 2007, his first thoughts were of his close friend. To this day, his race helmet still carries a memorial to Greg. Franchitti’s record-breaking IndyCar achievements have been, naturally, overshadowed by the loss of Wheldon. There has been no celebrating; nor will there be.

In five years, broken only by his 12-month excursion into Nascar, Franchitti has won two Indy500s and four IndyCar titles, the last three in succession. The Scot has won 30 IndyCar races and is the most successful racer of his generation. Without question he now ranks with all the greats in IndyCar racing; only AJ Foyt has won more titles than him. Franchitti is first and foremost an honest, decent, family-loving guy. Life will go on, and hopefully he will return to race in 2012, ironically in a newly-designed IndyCar racer that Wheldon helped test, design and develop.

For now though he, like the rest of the IndyCar family, is hurting. The pain will ease, but it will never completely disappear.

When Wheldon’s death was confirmed on Sunday, the drivers returned to the track to complete five laps in memory of the popular, ever-smiling Englishman. Wheldon’s No. 77 was the only one on the towering scoreboard.

Franchitti sobbed uncontrollably as he got back into his car for the tribute laps. The song “Danny Boy” blared out from speakers at the track. The haunting notes of “Amazing Grace” followed as hundreds of crew workers from each team stood solemnly.

I have been asked on numerous occasions this week to mark Franchitti’s achievements. Now is not the time. Now is a time for respect and understanding; of accepting and acknowledging there are times in life when winning counts for nothing.

In time, as Dan Wheldon’s memory continues, life will return to as near normal as possible for those left behind.

For now though, there is no winning; just the memory of a life lost.