British racing driver Dan Wheldon showed up on the IndyCar scene with a bang, just barely missing out on the championship title in only his second year in the sport, then sweeping both the Indy 500 and the championship in 2005 (via Sportscasting). Not to mention a surprise win at the 2011 Indy 500.

But the 2011 season was marked by a lot more tragedy than triumph. After only a handful of laps, the intended grand finale ended with a massive crash; debris littered the track as cars swerved and crashed. Unable to do much, Wheldon got swept up in that crash, his car flying over another and through the air, then shredded by the fences. A few tense hours later, Wheldon was pronounced dead.

The really sad thing, though, is the fact that Wheldon’s death could’ve been avoided. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, many of the drivers had voiced their concerns going into the race, fearing that the conditions (high-banked turns, tightly packed racing) would end in disaster. On top of that, Wheldon was, at the time, working with IndyCar on testing safety improvements that would keep drivers safe. That is, safety improvements that would keep cars from going airborne in the exact way that Wheldon’s car did in the crash that killed him. It’s just really sad that the work he was doing — the work that could’ve saved his life — wasn’t implemented until a year after his death.

Davey Allison was a rather accomplished NASCAR driver. Boasting some 19 wins — one of which was the 1992 Daytona 500 — Davey was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2019, on top of being a member of a prominent racing family. He and his father actually took first and second at a race in 1988 (via NASCAR Hall of Fame), and his brother and uncle were also pretty big names in the sport (via The New York Times).

But racing proved not to treat the Allison family well. Both Davey’s father and uncle — Bobby and Donnie Allison, respectively — retired from the sport in the 1980s due to crashes that ended their careers. But then tragedy really struck in July 1992, when Davey’s brother, Clifford Allison, died in a violent crash during practice at the Michigan International Speedway.

The family tragedies didn’t end there, though. Per the Los Angeles Times, barely a year would pass before the same misfortune fell on Davey. In July 1993, he was landing a helicopter at Talladega’s infield when it suddenly rocketed up 25 feet in the air and spun before landing on its side. The other passenger survived, but Davey was killed.

And to make things even heavier, Davey’s death came only a couple months after Alan Kulwicki — another NASCAR driver — was killed in a separate plane crash. Dark times for the sport.

You’ve heard of Mario Andretti, right? Yeah, you probably have. The Andretti name is just absolutely massive, one that’s gotten around outside of solely racing fans. In case you don’t know, Mario Andretti is basically the guy when it comes to racing, winning the Formula One championship, the Indianapolis 500, and the Daytona 500 (via AP).

But despite the legends, Andretti is just as human as the rest of us, and, as of writing, the past few years haven’t been the kindest. Andretti’s wife — whom he credited in an interview with shaping his legendary career — died suddenly in 2018 (via IndyStar). His sister also died within the same year, and when 2020 rolled around, Andretti’s nephew died after three years of fighting colon cancer.

And then, well, 2020 was 2020. With the COVID-19 pandemic, Andretti ended up stuck at home alone, with only his parrot to keep him company into the evenings. He’d long been a staple at IndyCar events — both his son and grandson being a part of the sport — but those races all got put on hold. But to really top it all off, December 2020 would deliver the worst blow: the death of Andretti’s twin brother, Aldo, due to complications from COVID-19. The brothers had always been close, sharing a passion for racing their entire lives, and Andretti tweeted shortly after his brother’s death that “Half of me went with him.”

Yup, we’re going to talk about this one: the terrifying, near-deadly crash that Niki Lauda — three-time Formula 1 world champion — managed to survive in 1976. It’s one of those huge accidents that F1 fans likely know.

The 1976 season is hailed as one of the most exciting seasons in all of F1 history, and one of the races was set to happen at the infamous Nurburgring — a massive 14-mile-long track known for its treachery, having killed five drivers in the three years prior. Drivers in 1976 knew that, and Lauda himself spoke out against racing at the track, especially given that track conditions on the day of the race were wet and dangerous. He called for a vote to cancel the race, only to lose by one (via The Mirror).

That slim defeat changed everything. Partway through the race, Lauda felt something break in his car, sending him spinning into the guardrails. His car erupted into flames with Lauda stuck inside “for 55 seconds at 800 degrees,” in his own words (via Autoweek). He was sent to the hospital (where he fell into a coma) to treat third-degree burns and damage to his lungs from inhaling toxic fumes. Lauda said he was “right on the point of death for days” and thought he “really did die once.” A priest even went so far as to read him his last rites, though that particular incident angered him enough that he fought even harder to survive.

Several decades later, in 2019 and at the age of 70, the champion “passed away in his sleep,” according to the BBC.