zelatore
10-24-2011, 10:23 AM
I know we have a few bike fans here, but not sure how many follow MotoGP.
Marco Simmoncelli died on the second lap of the Sepang GP Sunday. I won't post any video, but there's plenty of stuff out there if you want to do a search.
I had heard from my brother that something happened to him before watching the race and yeah, he was really on the edge working it with Bautista. You could see him take some pretty big chances on that first lap, but knowing ‘something’ would happen only highlighted it. Had you not been tipped off, it would have looked about like any other MotoGP race start.
I’ve been hearing people saying things like ‘his hair made his helmet come off’ (he had a huge afro) and ‘something was wrong because it looked like he was stuck to the bike’. Clearly people who don’t follow racing or ride themselves.
He was extremely good, if a little raw/reckless yet. You could see they guy had what it takes to win races and even championships. A heck of a loss for the GP community and especially Italy where they were pegging him as the next Rossi.
Pretty obvious what happened. Low side. Pretty much he was ‘crashed’ at that point, but the best riders (and he was one) have been known to save it even after going ‘over the edge’ by picking the sliding bike back up on their elbow/knee. When he did that the front tire grabbed (which was what he wanted, only he wanted both tires to hook at the same time) and shot him to the INSIDE of the corner where Edwards and Rossi hit him almost simultaneously.
The impacts of the bikes hitting him could have been fatal; could have broke his back/neck or caused massive internal injuries. But the real clincher was that somehow his helmet failed and came off. In some of the slo-mo online you can see the helmet rolling along with strap still buckled and disconnected at one end. Looks to me like the attachment point of the strap to the helmet on one side failed under the impact of the bikes. That shouldn’t have happened, but even if it didn’t there’s a good chance he wouldn’t have made it. I’m still hoping to hear more about the helmet as that’s the one thing we can possibly use to increase future rider safety. The accident was just that – a never say die guy trying to save a low side that (in retrospect) he’d have likely walked away from with no/little injury if he’d have just let it go and slid wide. And I don’t think there’s much more you could do with the rest of his gear that would have offered any protection from the impact. But there’s no way a helmet should EVER come off short of taking the guy’s head with it.
To get an idea of what he was trying to do, here’s a video of Jamie Hacking making the exact same save a year or two ago at Barber. He’s totally on the ground; the wheels aren’t on the track at all, then he pushes the bike back onto it’s wheels and he continues. Note that just like Marco, he shoots over to the inside of the track when the bike hooks back up.
http://totalracingsolutions.com/related-video/jamie-hacking-the-best-save-ever-video (http://totalracingsolutions.com/related-video/jamie-hacking-the-best-save-ever-video)
I don't follow Indycar racing, but last week we had Dan Weldon killed in a 'pack racing' accident that took out half the field. Not to sound harsh, but if you put open wheel cars on an oval and run them in a pack like that you can almost gaurantee something very bad is going to happen. This on the other hand was a really unexpected accident. The end result of course was the same in both cases, with two very talented men being taken before their time.
I'm waiting for the anti-racing reactionairies to start coming out of the woodwork. In some ways, we're 'lucky' that these two series don't have a huge fan base among the general US population like say nascar. Those who are fans and knowledgeable about the sport will understand what happended, while the general public who already thinks racing and 'murder-cycles' are too dangerous would just use this as more ammo to get rid of anything enjoyable in the world.
RIP Super Sic
Marco Simmoncelli died on the second lap of the Sepang GP Sunday. I won't post any video, but there's plenty of stuff out there if you want to do a search.
I had heard from my brother that something happened to him before watching the race and yeah, he was really on the edge working it with Bautista. You could see him take some pretty big chances on that first lap, but knowing ‘something’ would happen only highlighted it. Had you not been tipped off, it would have looked about like any other MotoGP race start.
I’ve been hearing people saying things like ‘his hair made his helmet come off’ (he had a huge afro) and ‘something was wrong because it looked like he was stuck to the bike’. Clearly people who don’t follow racing or ride themselves.
He was extremely good, if a little raw/reckless yet. You could see they guy had what it takes to win races and even championships. A heck of a loss for the GP community and especially Italy where they were pegging him as the next Rossi.
Pretty obvious what happened. Low side. Pretty much he was ‘crashed’ at that point, but the best riders (and he was one) have been known to save it even after going ‘over the edge’ by picking the sliding bike back up on their elbow/knee. When he did that the front tire grabbed (which was what he wanted, only he wanted both tires to hook at the same time) and shot him to the INSIDE of the corner where Edwards and Rossi hit him almost simultaneously.
The impacts of the bikes hitting him could have been fatal; could have broke his back/neck or caused massive internal injuries. But the real clincher was that somehow his helmet failed and came off. In some of the slo-mo online you can see the helmet rolling along with strap still buckled and disconnected at one end. Looks to me like the attachment point of the strap to the helmet on one side failed under the impact of the bikes. That shouldn’t have happened, but even if it didn’t there’s a good chance he wouldn’t have made it. I’m still hoping to hear more about the helmet as that’s the one thing we can possibly use to increase future rider safety. The accident was just that – a never say die guy trying to save a low side that (in retrospect) he’d have likely walked away from with no/little injury if he’d have just let it go and slid wide. And I don’t think there’s much more you could do with the rest of his gear that would have offered any protection from the impact. But there’s no way a helmet should EVER come off short of taking the guy’s head with it.
To get an idea of what he was trying to do, here’s a video of Jamie Hacking making the exact same save a year or two ago at Barber. He’s totally on the ground; the wheels aren’t on the track at all, then he pushes the bike back onto it’s wheels and he continues. Note that just like Marco, he shoots over to the inside of the track when the bike hooks back up.
http://totalracingsolutions.com/related-video/jamie-hacking-the-best-save-ever-video (http://totalracingsolutions.com/related-video/jamie-hacking-the-best-save-ever-video)
I don't follow Indycar racing, but last week we had Dan Weldon killed in a 'pack racing' accident that took out half the field. Not to sound harsh, but if you put open wheel cars on an oval and run them in a pack like that you can almost gaurantee something very bad is going to happen. This on the other hand was a really unexpected accident. The end result of course was the same in both cases, with two very talented men being taken before their time.
I'm waiting for the anti-racing reactionairies to start coming out of the woodwork. In some ways, we're 'lucky' that these two series don't have a huge fan base among the general US population like say nascar. Those who are fans and knowledgeable about the sport will understand what happended, while the general public who already thinks racing and 'murder-cycles' are too dangerous would just use this as more ammo to get rid of anything enjoyable in the world.
RIP Super Sic