A bad year for motorsports in the Silver State

This weekend saw two more tragedies for the motorsports world with Nevada connections.

Most people have already heard about or seen the video replays of the horrific IndyCar crash in Las Vegas on Sunday that claimed the life of two-time Indy 500 champion Dan Wheldon.

The same day, off-road racer Rick Huseman was killed in a plane crash in California after taking off from North Las Vegas.

This comes after last month's Reno Air Races tragedy that killed 11 people, and the two people who were killed during an open road rally race in eastern Nevada.

Is this Nevada's motorsports jinx?

I was watching the IndyCar race live on TV. I grew up around open-wheel racing, and I've seen a lot of the other IndyCar crashes over the years. But this was absolutely the craziest incident ever. Cars were going airborne two at a time, bursting into flames, taking out nearly half the field in one fell swoop.

Some drivers had worried before the race about the speeds they were hitting on the Las Vegas track, clocking 225 mph in practice. When you have that kind of speed on a track that is a mile shorter than Indianapolis, bad things can happen. Now we know just how bad they can get.

I have to wonder what impact this crash will have on the future of the Vegas event and other similar tracks. Certainly they will have to do something to reduce the speeds to a more reasonable level, and perhaps limit the number of cars in the field.

IndyCar racing in general is struggling, with NASCAR getting the lion's share of attention and money these days. With Go Daddy girl Danica Patrick moving to NASCAR next year, this is the last thing IndyCar racing needed. You have to question if this racing series can survive this blow.

The Reno Air Races are probably in a much worse position in terms of that event ever taking place again. The National Transportation Safety Board is still looking at the incident, and whatever their finding are could lead to new FAA rules for the event, if not an outright ban.

Regardless of what these agencies do, the insurance companies may be responsible for pounding the final nail in the coffin. Lawsuits filed over last month's crash could scare off companies willing to insure the event. If the event can't get insurance coverage it can afford, it's dead. I would hate to see it come to this, to know that I've seen my last air race. But I understand the challenges that lay ahead.

With the exception of the Huseman plane crash, all of these incidents are tied together by the unlimited pursuit of speed. The P-51 flown by pilot Jimmy Leeward was highly modified to make it faster for the Reno Air Races, including the removal of 10 feet of its wingspan.

The Chevy Camaro that crashed during the Silver State Classic Challenge was traveling at 200 mph when it blew a tire. That is insanely fast for a car driving down a rural highway.

While IndyCars do have regulations to keep races under control, it seems obvious now that it wasn't enough to account for the speeds on this kind of high-bank track built for stock cars.

Nevada has thrived on its no-rules philosophy for a long time. This is the state people visit to do things they aren't allowed to do anywhere else, whether it be gambling, prostitution or pushing the limits of speed.

The Reno Air Races and Silver State Classic Challenge are events that are only held in the Silver State. The current world land speed record was set on the Black Rock Desert, the same place where the annual Burning Man festival celebrates freedom from the conventional rules of society.

This is a fast state. Perhaps too fast. Speed has caught up to Nevada in a very bad way these past two months. Can Nevada's love for speed survive these tragedies? Only time will tell.

Human beings will always push to go faster, higher, farther. It's who we are. Unfortunately, we find out just how much is too much when someone dies. Hopefully we learn from those mistakes, pull back from the edge a little, and start the pursuit all over again.

But have we gone too far this time?