Detailed Instructions: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Problem:LAS VEGAS -- The racing world may have thought Dan Wheldon had experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows that the sport had to offer in 2011. 
  
 But then motorsports suffered the lowest point possible with Wheldon's death Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. 
  
 Wheldon started the season unemployed but parlayed a one-off drive in the Indianapolis 500 into his second Indy win and the richest payday of his racing career. And he was on the brink of even greater things in the years ahead. But he got caught in a 15-car crash on the 11th lap of the Las Vegas Indy 300. 
  
 A fan shared a message after it was announced that Dan Wheldon had died from injuries suffered in a crash at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Robert Laberge/Getty Images 
  
 The 2005 IndyCar Series champion's car was launched into the catch fence, causing what INDYCAR termed "unsurvivable injuries." 
  
 Wheldon was 33 years old and leaves a wife and two children. 
  
 ESPN.com learned from team owner Michael Andretti that just hours prior to Sunday's race, Wheldon signed a multiyear deal to replace Danica Patrick in Andretti Autosport's No. 7 car sponsored by GoDaddy.com. 
  
 Wheldon drove for Andretti Autosport from 2003 to 2005, winning the 2005 Indianapolis 500 and series championship. He was part of a powerful, four-car Andretti juggernaut including Dario Franchitti, Tony Kanaan and Bryan Herta that won 11 of 17 races during that magical '05 season. 
  
 "He was a very close friend and we had just literally inked it this morning," Andretti said. "We had great plans to do fun things together. I'm going to miss him. There was a lot of life in that guy. He was part of the glory days here. We had a combination that has never been put together in the sport of auto racing, in my opinion. 
  
 "But it's part of our sport. He knew the risks; we all know the risks when we get in the car. It probably touches me a little more because of everything that was going on. It's a terrible thing, but unfortunately in our sport we've had a lot of days like these. They suck, but that's the way it is." 
  
 Wheldon was making only his third start of the 2011 season. He spent much of the year serving as the test and development driver for the new chassis that the IndyCar Series is introducing for 2012. 
  
 At Las Vegas, Wheldon was part of a publicity stunt known as the GoDaddy IndyCar Challenge in which he would have split a $5 million prize with a fan should he have won the race. 
  
 Wheldon started from the back of the 34-car field and had moved up to 24th place when the carnage unfolded on the 11th of a scheduled 200 laps. 
  
 It appeared that Wheldon never lifted from the throttle before striking the back of E.J. Viso's car, sending Wheldon's No. 77 Sam Schmidt Motorsports entry airborne into a barrel roll. 
  
 The car struck the catch fence with enough force to shear the roll hoop cleanly from the top of the Dallara chassis. 
  
 "I don't know what I can say to comfort anybody," said Kanaan, who aside from being Wheldon's teammate from 2003 to 2005 was one of his closest friends. "But I think if you asked everyone in this field how they would want to go, that's the way. If I could choose I'd do the same. But right now I can't describe the pain. 
  
 The IndyCar Series family lined the track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway as drivers completed a five-lap tribute to honor Dan Wheldon. Tom Pennington/Getty Images 
  
 "I just pray that he rests in peace. Right now I just want to give my support to his family. He was one of my best friends and one of my greatest teammates back in the day." 
  
 Kanaan and Franchitti shared a similar experience in 1999 when their close friend Greg Moore was killed during the season finale at California Speedway. The Brazilian, who won the IndyCar title in 2004 and served as a mentor to Wheldon, put the day's events into perspective. 
  
 "We don't think about things like this," Kanaan said. "As race car drivers, we have to block out that possibility. Unfortunately when it happens it's really hard. 
  
 "But what we do is dangerous and we face that every day," Kanaan continued. "It's been happening for years, for decades. It's just hard to swallow, but we have to move on. We're racers; we love what we do. Eventually we're going to have to turn the page and remember him with the great memories we have. I know exactly what he would say if I told him I was going to quit: He'd say he was going to take my place." 
  
 Franchitti paid tribute to Wheldon on a day when the focus was meant to have been on him. Franchitti clinched his fourth IndyCar series title (and third consecutive) on Sunday when his championship rival, Will Power, was involved in the same crash that killed Wheldon. 
  
 "Right now I'm numb and speechless," Franchitti said. "One minute you're joking around at driver intros and the next Dan's gone. We had a couple of fallouts over the way, but we were friends. Everybody in IndyCar Series considered Dan a friend. You saw the reaction. He was one of those special, special people from when he showed up first in IndyCar. And he was kind of brash, all that stuff, but he was a charmer. Then he became this loving family guy who is still charming, but he had this whole new side to him. 
  
 "I'm just thinking of [Wheldon's wife] Susie and the boys," Dario added. "When I think about them, I'm struggling to hold it together. I don't know what else to say." 
  
 For Franchitti, the similarities to the Moore tragedy of 1999 were uncanny. The only difference this year is that he came out on top in the championship standings. 
  
 "We can put so much pressure on ourselves to win races and championships, and that's what we love to do," Franchitti said. "It's what we live for. 
  
 "But on days like today, it doesn't really matter." 
  
 John Oreovicz covers open-wheel racing for ESPN.com. ||||| Editor's note: The second installment from driver Dan Wheldon on his bid for $5 million in Sunday's Izod IndyCar World Championships was filed a day before he died in a fiery wreck in Sunday's Las Vegas Indy 300. 
  
 So far, things haven't been going very well as we've started our pursuit of the GoDaddy IndyCar Challenge this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but I'm confident in the ability of the guys at Sam Schmidt Motorsports to find the problem and get it fixed. 
  
 It's actually been a very difficult weekend for us so far. Basically we carried over our problem from Kentucky Speedway, where we just didn't have the speed and never really found it. 
  
 But I've been watching these guys work their tails off trying to fix this problem, and I believe they'll turn it around before Sunday's race. As you know, the Challenge is a rather unique promotion. I'll start 34th in a 34-car field in Sunday's Izod IndyCar World Championships presented by Honda. If I win the race, I'll split a $5 million prize with Ann Babenco of High Bridge, N.J., who was chosen at random. 
  
 But during Thursday's practice session and Friday's practice and qualifying sessions, we were quite a bit off the pace in the No. 77 Bowers & Wilkins Magnolia/William Rast Dallara/Honda. When I say quite a bit, I mean more than 3 mph off the pace. If we start the race that far off the pace, it's going to be difficult to keep up. 
  
 But I have every confidence in Rob Edwards, our team manager, and his group of engineers. Rob has done a very good job of analyzing the problem. He's eliminating issues one by one. Hopefully by the race, we will have changed things enough that we will have discovered what's slowing us down. 
  
 It is incredibly frustrating, both for me and them. All the boys are working as hard as possible, but so far we haven't pinpointed what it is. Part of the reason it's so frustrating is because we'd created so much momentum around Indy, both with my victory in Bryan Herta's car and with Alex Tagliani's pole position in the car we're driving this weekend. 
  
 But there are a couple of positives. First, this is essentially the same group of people that combined to win the pole and the race at Indy; we've just switched cars. Alex is in the No. 98 car that I drove at Indy, and I'm in the No. 77 he drove to the pole at Indy. Second, and this is key, Alex has been fast in the 98 car so far at Vegas. Very fast. He's got the fourth starting position for Sunday's race, so we know we have the potential for a good car. We just haven't found it yet. 
  
 So everybody in our garage is trying their best, and they're going about it methodically and professionally, step by step, trying to get to the bottom of it. It's obviously something significant, because I'm so far off the pace. Alex did a 221.330 mph for his two-lap qualifying run. I barely got over 218. So whatever the problem is, it's significant. 
  
 That, too, gives me confidence. A difference that large forces you to look at everything. You're that far off, so you need to change everything. You have to be bold in your changes, and that's what Rob is being. When the difference in speed is small, the problem is harder to find. But we're not a little bit off, so it should be easier to define the problem. 
  
 I'm impressed by Rob and his guys and how detailed they're being and how hard they're trying, but it's frustrating for everyone. These guys want to win this challenge just as much as I do, so they're giving it everything they have. 
  
 Another good thing is that we have a full day Saturday to work on the problem. Right now, all they need is time to take the car apart and check everything. I'm confident they'll find it and we'll get out there Sunday with a car that can move through the field. 
  
 This is going to be an amazing show. The two championship contenders, Dario Franchitti and Will Power, are starting right next to each other in the middle of the grid. Honestly, if I can be fast enough early in the race to be able to get up there and latch onto those two, it will be pure entertainment. It's going to be a pack race, and you never know how that's going to turn out. 
  
 We all know what this team can do, and I know what I can do. At the end of the day, I have every confidence I them. We should be good in the race. They've worked hard at this, and they'll figure it out. 
  
 As long as I can find some speed and keep up with the pack, I'll do everything I can to put on a show. |||||
Solution:
Hours before he was killed in a 15-car pileup, Indy 500 champion Dan Wheldon had signed a major, multiyear racing team deal. Wheldon had scored the spot Danica Patrick is vacating, behind the wheel of Andretti Autosport's car No. 7, ESPN reports. He had been part of the team's "glory days" from 2003 to 2005, says team owner Michael Andretti. "We had just literally inked it this morning," said Andretti of the deal. "We had great plans to do fun things together." In the lead-up to the tragedy, drivers had been worried about just the sort of accident that ultimately occurred, NPR reports. They feared the effects of a collision with 34 cars on a 1.5-mile track (in comparison, NPR notes that this year's Indy 500 featured one fewer car on a 2.5-mile track). "No normal human being really has the reaction time to avoid anything" should something go wrong on a track that crowded and small, said a reporter. But for Wheldon himself, it seems, the top concern was speed. He worried that his team "just didn't have the speed" it might need to win, he told USA Today.