coops wrote: Also dont forget Zanardi and his accident.
More recently there have also been the fatal accidents of Tony Renna and Paul Dana - and the severe injuries of Cristiano Da Matta, Kenny Brack and Ryan Briscoe.
But again, 4 out of these 5 happened on ovals, where security standards cannot be compared to F1 due to this being an almost completely different kind of racing. Still, one has to admit that this does make American open wheel racing much more dangerous - which was also one reason (among others) why Camp Car decided to quit ovals in 2007.
Only Da Matta's crash happened on a road course - and was not so much due to the poor safety standards in Road America as such, but more due to incredible bad luck. Make no mistake, though: Standards there (and on several other American road courses like Watkins Glen, Mid Ohio or Sears Point)
are quite poor compared to tracks F1 would use.