2011 IZOD IndyCar World Championship

The 2011 IZOD IndyCar World Championship Presented by Honda was the scheduled final race of the 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series. It was to be run at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on October 16, 2011, and was scheduled for 200 laps around the facility's 1.544 mile oval.

The race was red flagged after 12 laps had been run due to a massive 15-car crash, which resulted in the death of former IndyCar Series champion Dan Wheldon and injuries for drivers Will Power, Pippa Mann and J. R. Hildebrand. Contact between drivers Wade Cunningham and James Hinchcliffe triggered a chain of incidents in a cluttered 34-car field, with Wheldon and two other drivers getting airborne due to contact with slowing vehicles. Wheldon's No. 77 car somersaulted in the air and crashed into the Turn 2 catch fence at a 90 degree angle, cockpit side first, with his helmet hitting a fence post.

After a two-hour stoppage, the event was abandoned when IndyCar announced that Wheldon had died, less than five months after his second Indianapolis 500 victory. As the necessary minimum of 50% of the race distance (101 laps) had not been completed, no winner was declared, and the event was voided entirely.

KV Racing Technology driver Tony Kanaan started from the pole position, and was leading at the time of the crash. The race was to feature a title fight between championship leader Dario Franchitti and Will Power, who was eliminated from contention after being involved in the crash. With the race being scratched, Franchitti won his fourth IndyCar Series title by default.

The circumstances of the event were heavily criticized afterwards. Immediate blame was put on the experience level on high-speed ovals of some of the drivers, the Dallara IR-05 aerodynamic package that allowed drivers to follow each other closely in a huge pack, and the unsuitability of the Las Vegas oval, whose configuration allowed for up to four-wide, side-by-side racing at speeds in excess of 224 mph. Further criticism was levied on IndyCar's management for the number of cars entered, and the show-first approach of the event.

The fallout of the race led to major changes in IndyCar racing beyond the scheduled and safer Dallara DW12, the new spec chassis for the series from 2012, for which Wheldon had been the development driver. Oval racing became less prevalent in IndyCar competition, as the contract with Las Vegas was terminated, and the 'pack racing' style adopted by the Indy Racing League since the early 2000s on high speed ovals was subsequently avoided, with further recurrencies of the phenomenon (such as the 2015 MAVTV 500 and the 2017 Rainguard Water Sealers 600) being compared to the Las Vegas disaster.