INDIANAPOLIS, May 23 (UPI) -- A day before the 99th running of the Indianapolis 500, excited race fans hobnobbed with drivers and celebrated racing great Al Unser, all under the shadow of a spate of airborne crashes that have some questioning drivers' safety at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Concerns hang over the race after drivers Helio Castroneves, Ed Carpenter and Josef Newgarden experienced death-defying crashes that flipped their cars, in some cases with vehicles sliding dozens of yards. Schmidt Peterson Motorsports driver James Hinchcliffe suffered life-threatening injuries in one of the crashes.