A decade ago it was Dale Earnhardt, the seven-time NASCAR champion who died on the track. This time it was Dan Wheldon, the two-time Indy winner who died on the track. And others have fallen in between.

IndyCar racer Paul Dana died in a morning warm up at Homestead in 2006, for instance.

Is dying simply an inevitable part of the racing sport, or can it be avoided?

Altogether, the answer is likely no. When nearly 30 or more cars race around a small oval at excessive speeds no amount of added precautions can take that risk away. Collision risks are high, and death and injury is the obvious risk of collision.

The drivers are trained to look out for another another, understanding the risk of the sport. But they are also trained to win, and the drive to win increasing danger. One little mistake is all it takes and BOOM, another crash is at hand.

In Sunday's Las Vegas Indy 300 race where Wheldon died, the death of one of the most successful drivers in Amerca was inevitable, says a former IndyCar Driver.

Mark Blundell told The Telegraph of the UK that the Sunday race which claimed Wheldon's life and injured three others in a 15-car smash up was inevitable in many ways and a recipe for disaster. Blundell noted the high speeds being run in practice sessions before the Las Vegas race.

Some drivers had expressed concern about the speeds before the race. Even Wheldon noted in a first-person piece in USA Today the day before the race that he was concerned that his car's time was some three miles per hour off the pace in qualifying. He promised to do better, saying, he would put on a show.

The result undoubtedly wasn't the kind of show Wheldon intended. But the environment was apparently ripe for just that.

Having driven these cars myself for five years it's a very tough environment, the speeds are very high, they're much faster than Formula One cars and when you're only a couple of inches away from each other side by side doing 220 mph, when things go wrong they go wrong in a big way, Brundell said in The Telegraph.

The biggest point is these that kinds of cars should not be running on these circuits. You saw today, 15 cars wiped out 40 per cent of the grid and we've had a fatality and that's not acceptable.

After the race, some drivers expressed concern that some drivers in the 34-car field were impatient, and apparently oblivious to the conditions.

One mistake can take 15 people out, and that's what happened there, said IndyCar driver Tony Kanaan, according to the Atlanta Constitution-Journal. I've never seen such a mess in my entire career.

The solution, according to Kanaan, is internal education among drivers.

We have to take care of each other. We are playing with lives here, Kanaan said. We need to give each other room. As a senior member, I am going to get Dario (Franchitti) and the guys together, and we need to tell the guys to use their heads.

The effort will be better than nothing. But unless Indy racing makes some drastic changes, the risk of fatality for drivers will remain. It's an unfortunate part of a dangerous, high-speed sport, but the risks, certainly, could be mitigated.

At Las Vegas on Sunday, that didn't happen and Wheldon paid the ultimate price.

United kingdom