Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
There were a street races, and Detroit wasn't a mess! Kyle Kirkwood drove like a pro to victory. A few other drivers didn't have their greatest days. Lance Stroll possibly lost his cool, and a Le Mans lineup could be shuffled because of it. Even though it is listed as a "wrist injury." Max Verstappen did lose his cool, and he lost ten seconds and 11 points. McLaren is leaving Europe on a high note. NASCAR spent a few nights in Nashville. A few things have been on my mind for a while, but something struck me early in the week, and my mind went for a wander.
Butterfly Effect
I was thinking about Dan Wheldon. The reason why will come next week. Another thought came to mind.
If Dan Wheldon doesn't die, do we have the aeroscreen?
Of all the feelings in the aftermath of Wheldon's fatal accident, the one that stuck out was the open cockpit of an IndyCar should be addressed to protect drivers. That didn't come immediately, and you may be ready to point out it wasn't Wheldon's death that led to the aeroscreen's introduction... it was Justin Wilson's.
But if Dan Wheldon does not lose his life in the 2011 season finale from Las Vegas Motor Speedway and he is allowed to drive for Andretti Autosport in the 2012 season as planned, is Justin Wilson in an Andretti Autosport seat for the 2015 season?
If Wheldon lives, does Wilson live, and with two accidents erased from history, are there any initiatives for the aeroscreen and a number of safety innovations we have seen in the last 15 years from IndyCar?
But let's go a step-further. Where is James Hinchcliffe?
If Wheldon lives, Hinchcliffe likely isn't in the Andretti Autosport seat for the 2012 season. If Hinchcliffe isn't at Andretti for 2012 and the following two seasons, where is he? Does Hinchcliffe's path still take him to Schmidt Peterson Motorsports for 2015? Is Hinchcliffe still almost fatally injured in practice for the 2015 Indianapolis 500? Do the modifications to the cockpit to prevent intrusion from shattered suspension parts take place? Does Hinchcliffe's career play out to where he is in consideration for the broadcast booth and his full-time driving career is over by 2022 at the age of 35?
Those are just three parts of an incalculable what if in IndyCar history, but let's just start with the cars.
Much of what an IndyCar looks like in 2025 dates back to the events of October 16, 2011. Some elements were already in motion before that date. We knew IndyCar was developing bodywork intended on eliminating locking wheels that sent cars skyward. To think of it, have we seen an incident of locking wheels cause a car to take flight in the last 13 years?
We have had cars climb over one another and the air flip one around. Each year a car spins at Indianapolis, hits the wall and once a portion of the body work has been sheered away, the damaged vehicle is lifted off the ground if only for a moment and not always fully turned upside down. Some of what we have been watching would remain unchanged.
But do we have the aeroscreen?
As much as we hate to admit it, humanity is slow to adopt change unless forced even if it is for the greater good of mankind. The open cockpit has always been a glaring safety issue in motorsports. A driver's head is literally out in the open for any debris, rock, bird, tennis ball, thrown ham sandwich or unidentified flying object to strike it. At speeds excessing 220 miles per hour, that is a problem no matter what the object is. Yet, despite the inherited danger of IndyCar, for decades nothing was done to address it.
"No one got kill. Why change, am I right?"
There were plenty of reasons given why a cockpit could not be closed, all tied to safety being worse with a closed cockpit than when a driver has his head out as an easy target for anything that happened to be flying around a race circuit to hit it.
Take away two fatalities and we are likely in the year 2025 with no aeroscreen and people still repeating the same reasons, which on one side of the tracks are known as excuses, as to why cockpit protection would only make things worse. Don't argue that nobody would be against it. There would still be many people adamantly against it.
The world is larger than IndyCar though. A world where Wheldon and Wilson live does not mean it is a world where Jules Bianchi also does not suffer his fatal accident. Perhaps an outside force would have pushed IndyCar to at least adopting the halo. If Formula One was doing it and it was protecting drivers, IndyCar would look tone-deaf for not doing the same for its drivers.
But even if the halo was adopted, without the full aeroscreen, are we still on the DW12 chassis? For starters, if Wheldon had lived we are not calling it the "DW12 chassis." It is the "Dallara IR12." Is the chassis that debuted in 2012 still in competition?
The DW12 has been around for 14 seasons now, and it has seen plenty of evolutions over the years. From adopting manufacturer-specific aero kits to a universal aero kits to additional safety features to keep the cars on the ground to the aeroscreen and so on, the car is far different from from the first prototypes that were tested in 2011.
With each new feature, it has been bolted on what has existed and not fully incorporated into the car. It gets the job done, for now. It can be fully developed into the new car. In a way, each new feature has delayed the new car.
"Develop the aeroscreen! Bolt it on immediately! We must protect the drivers! We can worry about a new chassis later!"
If there had been no aeroscreen, is IndyCar and Dallara dragging its feet on a new car? What is under the bodywork partially dictates the timing of a new car, but come 2020 when the aeroscreen was introduced, we had already been talking about the next chassis evolution in IndyCar. If there wasn't this additional project meant to develop a new safety feature that had to be immediately introduced, would the focus have been on developing an entirely new chassis that could have been debut in 2020, engine regulations be damned?
The counter is if nothing had really changed other than the aero kits on the car from 2012 through 2018, IndyCar would not have been in a greater push for a new car than it has been for the last few seasons despite all the changes that have occurred.
Safety innovations would be a greater reason to developing a new chassis, and likely speed up the need for a new car rather than keeping the status quo. So maybe we would still be on the DW12 chassis with the same bodywork that has been used since the start of the 2018 season.
Then again, if Wheldon and Wilson live, Bianchi still dies and the halo is being introduced in FIA series around the world, IndyCar might feel the pressure to make the same change, and seeing as how Dallara was developing all these chassis anyway, an IndyCar version with a halo wouldn't be that hard to adopt, and come 2019 we would have had a new car anyway.
Let's acknowledge that even in a world where the halo is being adopted around the globe, IndyCar would have been at least a year, if not two behind Formula One, and we wouldn't have seen it until 2019 or 2020. A delayed response but a response nonetheless.
There is also the horrifying reality that though it might not have been Wheldon and Wilson who perished, it could have ended up being someone else. With the way things were, a fatal accident was bound to happen had nothing changed. If a fatal accident were to occur, then some if not all these changes are still introduced, just at different times. The DW12 could have been retired in 2017 because there was an accident that forced IndyCar to make a change and introduce a new car that was sporting a different drivers' initials.
When it comes to the butterfly effect theory, we don't know how this moment in time would look if one event went differently. You could argue it is a wasteful exercise. I counter that it can be used to assess where you are compared to where you were.
We know how this moment looks, and we know the general feelings around a variety of topics and how we feel about certain changes in 2025. How does that compare to the same topics and how changes were perceived ten or 15 years ago?
Whether it is a new safety feature or developments to a car or just developing an entirely new car, how have our thoughts and reactions remained unchanged and how are they different? And what can we learn in that reflection that allows us to evolve our perspectives moving forward?
We cannot go back and change past events, but we can use our experiences from the past to guide the decisions we make moving forward.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Kyle Kirkwood, but did you know...
Oscar Piastri won the Spanish Grand Prix, his fourth victory of the season.
Richard Verschoor (sprint) and Arvid Lindblad (feature) split the Formula Two races from Barcelona. Ivan Domingues (sprint) and Rafael Câmara (feature) split the Formula Three races.
The #93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura of Renger van der Zande and Nick Yelloly won the IMSA race from Detroit. The #64 Multimatic Ford of Mike Rockenfeller and Sea Priaulx won in GTD.
Dennis Hauger won the Indy Lights race from Detroit, his fourth victory of the season.
Maximilian Günther and Nick Cassidy split the Shanghai ePrix.
Ryan Blaney won the NASCAR Cup race from Nashville. Justin Allgaier won the Grand National Series race, his third victory of the season. Rajah Caruth won the Truck race.
The #48 Mercedes-AMG Team Mann-Filter Mercedes-AMG of Lucas Auer, Matteo Cairoli and Maro Engel won the 3 Hours of Monza.
Coming Up This Weekend
MotoGP is at Aragón.
NASCAR moves into Michigan.
World Rally treks to Sardinia.
The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters has a round at Zandvoort while some drivers will need to bolt to the Le Mans test day.
Supercars are in Wanneroo.
