More racing tragedy ...

It was just one of those things where you hope – you pray - that it wasn’t driver error.

IndyCar driver Paul Dana’s fatal accident in practice at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday was one of the most horrific crashes I’ve ever seen, topping even Alex Zanardi’s accident at the Lausitzring the weekend after 9/11, Kenny Brack’s accident at Texas Motor Speedway a couple of seasons ago, or Tom Sneva’s car’s disintegration at Indy in the 1970s.

For those who missed it, final practice for the IndyCar season opener started at 10am on Sunday morning, about 4 hours before the race. About three minutes into the session, Ed Carpenter’s car spun in one of the turns (“lazily,” many reports say), hit the wall, skidded along the wall, then slid back down the track to the apron. Roughly 7 seconds after the accident, in which most cars had slowed to a safer speed in response to a spotter’s instructions, the caution lights in their vehicles or on the track.

Paul Dana’s car, however, did not.

As the cameras were focused on Carpenter’s car, this blur inexplicably comes into the picture from the right and hits Carpenter’s disabled car head-on. Dana’s car was estimated to be traveling at around 176 mph when the collision occurred.

Carpenter and Dana were airlifted to a local trauma center; Carpenter was listed in stable condition with, amazingly, no broken bones, but Dana passed away in surgery.

Dana was slated to make his fourth career IndyCar start that afternoon, and his first for Rahal Letterman Racing as a teammate to Buddy Rice and Danica Patrick. He raced part of last year for Hemelgarn before breaking his back in practice for the Indy 500.

It was just one of those things where you hope – you pray – that it wasn’t driver error. We already know from Rahal Letterman’s statement that the spotter was communicating to Dana, and we know that the yellow caution lights in the cars and on the track were in working order. So, you hope that the black box telemetry will show that the throttle was stuck open or the brakes failed or something else went wrong on the car; you’d hate to think that a rookie mistake turned out to be a fatal error. I’ll reserve judgment until after we have more information.

Unfortunately, Dana’s passing has sparked a completely dumbass debate on the Indianapolis Star’s message boards. One idiot wrote, “NASCAR and IRL should be outlawed.” Others have taken the opportunity to use Dana’s death as a justification for a merger between rival racing organizations Indy Racing League and Champ Car.

The body’s not even cold yet. Ye gods.

Incidentally … be wary of anyone who says or writes about this or any other tragic passing: “At least he died doing what he loved.”

This should not be used as a mark of admiration or an acknowledgement of any sort of individualistic superiority. It’s probably the most trite, hackneyed tribute one could give. Consider:

A 400-pound guy who strokes out on the couch with a bag of potato chips in one hand and a box of Krispy Kremes in the other also died doing what he loved.

A john who’s in bed with a hooker when the pimp comes busting in and shoots him in the back of the head also died doing what he loved.

Len Bias died doing what he loved, too.

I’m just saying.