The picture of Dennis Cuevas’s Jeep climbing another Jeep’s front tire and a spectacular accident in the FUSA course in Pocono(red course on the map) have suggested me a few considerations. Yesterday our friend and CR Greg broke the return cable of the accelerator and when he went to blip the throttle to down shift while already braking he lost control of the “now accelerating” bike that fortunately “got rid” of him before hitting the guardrail: Greg was very lucky because did not suffer any injury.
When Valentino washed out his front end at the beginning of the race in Germany, everybody praised the seasoned champion for having kept the engine on by holding in the clutch while sliding with his M1. On the other end there are other situations that would require the rider to jump out of the bike like our friend Lenny Santangelo did a few years ago in VIR. He had lost his rear brake in a previous race crash and after two laps into a new race, at the end of the straight before T1, when he went to pull his front brake lever, there was nothing because he had lost the brake caliper pin! At 150+mph he literally jumped from his bike letting it to continue its ride like a torpedo that exploded once it hit the trees at the edge the T1 run-off. Fortunately Lenny suffered only a fractured leg, not too much for that type of crash. To be honest it was not the first time that Lenny bailed out from a bad situation, because he already did it in Pocono Raceway after loosing control of his bike in the grass knowing that soon he would have run into one of the famous ditches crossing the field to collect rainwater.
Some time nothing can be done because the centrifugal force would abruptly eject the unfortunate rider off his bike. A couple of days ago the 39-year-old Duhamel crashed in T12 of Road Atlanta, in the most dangerous corner of the AMA Superbike Championship calendar. A sudden high-side that threw off the veteran rider: the bike went up in the air after hitting and displacing the air-fence while Duhamel slid until hitting the hay bales. He has suffered some internal injuries but it could have been worse after hitting a wall at that speed.
Personally I have bailed out in the mist of a crash only once, but while riding a dirt bike, and I am not even sure if I would be able to pull a similar action on a road-racing bike given the high speed involved. At professional level riders crash quite often developing the necessary experience to manage properly the unfortunate situation.
At my level, and for anybody else attending club events, crashing is something that we try to avoid as much as we can. Even a stupid low side can be costly financially and physically, especially when on Monday you have to go back to work.
My rambling has not provided a clear answer to the original question, but it did suggested that in difficult circumstances we shouldn’t exclude the option of … bailing out.
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3 comments:
One of the scariest ones has to be when Colin Edwards was riding the MotoGP Aprilia and it burst into flames, so he just let go and jumped off. The look on his face showed how terrifying it must have been.
I have first hand knowledge of the "fanous" Pocono drainage ditches! Exiting the NASCAR portion of the East course last year, I went onto the grass. No problem, I thought. Don't panic, keep it upright and just ride it out. Lots and lots of room to regain control and get back on track. That is, until I came across a drainage ditch, complete with water and mud! I think the bike still has mud in certain areas a year later. I believe that particular ditch has been filled in, so maybe something good came of my mishap.
Too bad that someone has to get hurt to obtain some improvements .... It took decades and a lot of accident to improve safety in road racing, but unfortunately USA and in particular AMA have not been proactive enough: the conditions of the majority of the American track are not even close to the European level
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