My worst motorcycle crash by far happened during a motocross race.
At the time, I was on a Bultaco race bike doing roughly 65mph when a fellow racer lost control of his bike. I don’t know how, but he ended up doing a 180 degree turn and was flying toward me! There wasn’t time to react, and his bike jumped the berm and hit me.
His motorcycle actually climbed up my right front fork and bounced off my helmet. Honestly, if I hadn’t have been wearing my Bellstar full face helmet, I wouldn’t be typing this now, I would be dead, for sure. Afterwards, you could see the skid marks off the face of the helmet, it was that bad. The impact was so hard that it cracked the helmet from the eye hole to the top.
I ended up suffering a compound fracture in my arm, a concussion, and spent 2 weeks in the hospital. I couldn’t talk for 3 days due to the swelling in my throat from the helmet strap. The worst part of all of this is that the other guy didn’t bail off the bike, and his handlebars ended up smashing him in the chest, bruising his heart. He died on the way to the hospital.
I don’t remember the crash at all, which is good, I guess. Plenty of people filled me in later; it was just one of those freak accidents. Tracks these days tend to be safer; lots of hay bales help to prevent this kind of thing.
Ride safe everyone,
Jeff Osgoode
Fort Worth, Texas, USA
2 Responses
Just shows. Any time, anywhere. Not just on the track. Ride safe, be seen. Do some trackdays to learn how to handle your bike in it’s extremes, and you will subconsiously put that to use on the road.
And ride for the ride, not for the speed.
I can relate. Back in 1973 I was racing motocross in the open class and was on part of the track that went uphill, looped around and over jump, called the “Lauching Pad” on the downhill side. As I flew over the jump, a guy on the uphill side lost controll of his bike and did an abrupt 90 degree turn through the fence and I “T-boned” him in mid-air. Did a tumble and got run over 3 times. Unconcious for a moment and then up to get the bike off the track and the next thing I knew, unconcious again in the middle of a group of gawkers. I was luckier than you, no broken bones or hospital time.