• The Detroit Bureau, Tuesday, October 18, 2011 10:35 AM

Sunday’s tragic 15-car accident that killed racecar driver Dan Wheldon has many people calling for changes to make the race safer. NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson even said that the cars should stop racing on ovals.

Columnist Bryan Laviolette says the problem is the cars. "IndyCar needs to take radical steps to make the cars safer," he writes, arguing that there are four big problems with IndyCars: their open wheel design, tiny and open cockpit and extreme high-speed capability.

A NASCAR racer, by contrast, has closed wheel wells, roofs, a sedan-sized cockpit and is limited to about 185 mph, notes Laviolette, arguing that IndyCar wants to have its cake and eat it, too: become the American-based alternative to Formula One but raced on high-speed ovals. "So IndyCars have evolved to look much like their European cousins. But F1 cars don’t race on ovals. Aren’t designed to run there and never will."

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