The race was red flagged after 12 laps had been run due to a massive 15-car crash, which resulted in the death of former IndyCar Series champion Dan Wheldon and injuries for drivers Will Power, Pippa Mann and J. R. Hildebrand.

11 as its third car for veteran Davey Hamilton, as the last of his three-race deal along with Indianapolis and Texas, and Buddy Rice joined Panther Racing in a second No.

Cunningham had initially signed its three-race programme with Schmidt shortly before the team regained full time status by buying FAZZT's assets, and he was farmed to AFS for the final two races of the deal.

[21][22] Finally, there was the Bryan Herta Autosport entry, which involved a switch of drivers between Dan Wheldon and Alex Tagliani (see The 5 Million Dollar Challenge below).

[25][26] Bernard's original offer was exclusively to "any race car driver in the world outside of the IZOD IndyCar Series,"[9] hoping to attract interest from Formula 1 or NASCAR.

[28] Pastrana, who also drove rally cars and would eventually compete in NASCAR, showed formal interest in taking part in the challenge in July 2011.

[29] Shortly after, he broke his foot and ankle in the Best Trick event at X Games XVII in Los Angeles, after crashing on landing during his attempt at a rodeo 720, which ruled him out of his planned NASCAR Nationwide Series programme.

He had not competed in an IndyCar event since the 2001 American Memorial at EuroSpeedway Lausitz, during which both of his legs were severed on impact after Alex Tagliani hit his car after Zanardi, who had been exiting off pit road and lost control of his vehicle.

[28] In his case, cross-country travel would cause a logistical issue; NASCAR would be running the Bank of America 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway the night before IndyCar's event.

[28] Entering the race, the only two drivers still in contention for the IndyCar Championship were Ganassi's Franchitti and Penske's Power, for the second year in a row.

As it had been predicted by drivers and teams alike since practice, the first laps were characterized by high intensity and a consistent trait of pack racing, similar to that experienced at a former venue like Chicagoland Speedway, but in a narrower surface and with a higher car count.

Tony Kanaan led the field from pole, and Oriol Servià lost second place to Ed Carpenter at the end of Lap 1, eventually falling back to the fifth spot behind Ryan Briscoe and Marco Andretti.

Most notably, Alex Tagliani and Ryan Briscoe touched wheels on Lap 6 while battling for fifth place, before the top 6 drivers eventually settled into a single-car line formation.

Jay Howard had been the biggest mover, climbing from 27th to 15th, and Dan Wheldon had already gained 10 spots through this period, placing 24th at the end of the tenth lap.

Sam Schmidt stated in a 2016 post that Wheldon was 'hooting and yelling' over the radio due to the good performance of his car, after multiple changes had been made overnight.

A similar approach was followed by drivers like Danica Patrick, Scott Dixon and Mike Conway, all of them electing to play it safe in the bottom lane while dropping down the order.

Although he was able to considerably slow it down, Wheldon's car went airborne about 325 feet (99 m) after running into the back of Kimball's and went barrel-rolling into the catch fence cockpit-first, causing the lower right-hand side of his head to hit one of the poles.

In addition, as some of the drivers drove through the scene during the brief caution period, they reported massive amounts of debris that they could not avoid driving over and that the asphalt surface had received several gashes in it that would need to be patched.

Power's involvement in the incident had resulted in Franchitti clinching the points championship, and with Wheldon also out of the race, since no other driver had taken the $5,000,000 challenge, there would be no prize awarded.

During the lengthy delay, ESPN conducted interviews with several drivers, who expressed their growing concern for their fellow competitor, as well as team owner Michael Andretti, who took it upon himself to head to the trailer on pit road where the officials were located.

[49] The meeting was closed to the media, but ABC's Vince Welch reported that Kanaan and Franchitti broke the news of Wheldon's death to the other drivers.

The network's cameras recorded the drivers leaving the meeting with grim expressions; Kanaan was seen sobbing in his pit box after returning to his car.

[60] James Hinchcliffe was eventually signed in early January to take Wheldon's place, and GoDaddy honored the two years of their sponsorship deal.

[65] Planned changes to the chassis include larger cockpits for driver protection and bodywork over the rear wheels to prevent cars from launching off one another in the event of a collision, long a problem in open-wheel racing, regardless of oval or road course, but troublesome on high-speed ovals and tight street circuits with a long straight and a tight turn, similar to the style of many modern road courses.

[67] Wheldon had been scheduled to take part in the Gold Coast 600, a round of the V8 Supercars championship, on October 22, racing alongside his friend James Courtney.

Sam Schmidt, for whom Wheldon had been racing at the time of his accident, admitted that the events at Las Vegas Motor Speedway had prompted him to re-evaluate his involvement in motorsports.

2004 Indianapolis 500 winner Buddy Rice, Vítor Meira and Alex Lloyd also made their last start at Vegas, after all three of them failed in their efforts to find a seat in the following years.

Speed, in an interview he gave to Inside Edition on October 18, 2011, said that he declined to take the offer saying that the track conditions were too dangerous for Indy-type cars.

[94] Likewise, A. J. Allmendinger, who also had previous open-wheel experience, had expressed early interest,[95] though he later declined, recalling, "[When] we raced CART at Vegas...it scared the living hell out of me.

The report recommended further investigation of this phenomenon, as it was the first recorded incident of its kind in nine years of the use of the IR03 and later IR05 model chassis, which was being retired at the end of the race.