Hamilton, Schmidt considering retirement after seeing Wheldon’s crash
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| Sam Schmidt (L) was left wheelchair bound as a result of IndyCar's oval tracks. Now his driver is dead too and that may be the straw that broke the camel's back for Sam. |
IndyCar team owner Sam Schmidt is considering quitting motorsport following the death of his driver Dan Wheldon on the Las Vegas IndyCar finale. Wheldon died from head injuries sustained in the 15-car pile-up last Sunday, and Schmidt, whose eponymous outfit co-fielded the British driver's car with Bryan Herta Autosport at Las Vegas, said that he is now having serious doubts about continuing in the sport.
"I'd by lying if I said I wasn't, but you've got to think about it," Schmidt, who was paralyzed in an IndyCar crash at Walt Disney World Speedway in 2000, said. "It's one thing to take the risk yourself and my situation, it's something I was doing since I was five years old and I'm still here to watch my kids grow up. It's an amazing parallel between Dan's age and my age when I got hurt and the ages of his kids. I'm still in a state of shock, but I just don't know if I can be this tightly associated with something like that in the future."
Schmidt said that the recent death of his Indy Lights team manager, Chris Griffiths, coupled with Wheldon's accident, had put a massive amount of strain on himself and his team.
"It's been a rollercoaster," he added "We lost a team member five weeks ago and we're still kind of reeling in that. Winning the [Indy Lights] championship in Kentucky really kind of uplifted the guys' spirits over that, then [to] come here and have this happen. It's pretty trying. I'm generally a positive guy, silver lining and everything, but I haven't been able to find a silver lining lately." Autosport
10/16/11 Davey Hamilton was asked after the big accident at Las Vegas on lap 12 of the IndyCar season finale if he would re-think driving part-time in the IndyCar series, especially when is friend Dan Wheldon suffered life threatening injuries.
"Absolutely," said Hamilton holding back tears. "I have to go back and ask myself if I should still be doing this especially when your friends are being flown out of here. I can't do the road courses anymore with my injuries, but I can still get it done on the ovals. But after this I have to reconsider. We have some other things going on and maybe team ownership makes more sense for me."