2nd Sprint Car driver killed over weekend

After a Sprint Car driver was killed over the weekend at Knoxville comes word a 2nd Sprint Car driver was killed as well – both by crashing into an oval track wall.

The Hoosier Outlaw Sprint Series is investigating the accident that killed Joe Rebman of Mansfield on Friday night at Mansfield Motorsports Speedway, the racing league said in a release on its Web site Sunday.

Rebman, 21, was pronounced dead at MedCentral/Mansfield Hospital shortly after 11 p.m., a nursing supervisor said. Richland County Coroner Stewart Ryckman said the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.

Rebman was competing in the 30-lap feature race around the half-mile track when his car hit a wall during the 26th lap and flipped onto its side. Emergency workers tended to him on the track, and the rest of the race was canceled.

The Mansfield Motorsports Speedway has foam-reinforced barriers designed to absorb the impact of a crash, the Hoosier Outlaw racing series said.

[Editor's Note: Only silly Americans race open wheel cars on oval tracks. We feel sorry for the families, but the list of body bags filled with dead American oval track drivers the last 50 years far exceeds the young men and women we lose in many wars.]