Though horrific, the pictures and video of the fiery 15-car crash in Las Vegas on Sunday that caused Indy 500 champion Dan Wheldon's death are not the cruelest pictures and video to watch.

No, in retrospect, the cruelest images, captured seconds earlier by a mini-camera aboard Wheldon's car, came as the 33-year-old driver worked his way forward from the back, racing hard, hurtling up the track, toward unknown trouble ahead.

The viewer, looking in from behind Wheldon's helmet, already knows what's coming because, of course, it's in the past. But the racer, in live time, has no clue. There is no clue. No reason to suspect any kind of problem. He's just racing, like he had in more than a hundred previous races, doing not only what he loved to do, but what he was so gifted at doing.

Suddenly, way up front, there is smoke from contact between two cars and, inside of a nanosecond, trouble is everywhere, fire and debris and hell are everywhere. Time is nowhere. Wheldon's car goes airborne, sails over another racer, flips into a catch fence, bursts into flames, and lands in a heap on the track alongside other burning, splintered cars.

Despite his great talent, and by no fault of his own, he had no chance to react, no chance to do anything … except die. He left behind his wife, two young children and a whole lot of friends.

What a tragedy.

Fellow racers, many of them with tears in their eyes, paid tribute by driving five laps in Wheldon's honor after the race was canceled.

I'm not going to rip racing here, although, for those outside the sport, it's sometimes hard to understand the need for speed. This is one of those times.

There have been great advances made in safety, and, until Sunday, no Indy Racing deaths had occurred since 2006. But watching one of the most popular and prominent drivers go like that, the reigning Indy 500 winner, should stop everyone — certainly anyone involved in motor sports — in their tracks and make them re-evaluate what happened here and why.

We all get that racing, in all its forms, is inherently dangerous, and we know drivers know that, too. But, man, to watch a champion plying his expert craft one second and innocently dying the next is tough to do.

Jim Murray, the late and longtime Los Angeles Times columnist, was the one who infamously twisted the command heard at the annual start of the Indy 500 by writing: "Gentlemen, start your coffins."

Dan Wheldon's had No. 77 painted on it Sunday.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Gordon Monson Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 97.5 FM/1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com. Twitter: @GordonMonson.