Indy 500 Champ Dies in Crash

Race-car driving lost one of its greats Sunday when Dan Wheldon died in a 15-car pileup in a crash at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The 33-year-old Englishman “was remarkably less full of himself than most athletes who had accomplished things on his level,” Bill Dwyre writes in the Los Angeles Times. The two-time Indianapolis 500 winner was the father of an infant and a 2-year-old son. The accident that killed him appears to have been caused by a bump between Wade Cunningham and J. R. Hildebrand. “The coincidence of that is clear,” Dwyre writes. “Hildebrand was the driver who crashed on the last lap of this year's Indy 500, allowing Wheldon to flash past and lead the race for the last 912 feet.”