Not sure if I should be embarrassed about this or not, but I crashed. Not spectacularly, just a simple stupid low-side off of turn 1 on Cresson’s 1.3 mile course. I suppose it isn’t anything to torture myself about except the fact that the weekend before I spent two days doing levels 3 & 4 at Superbike School and received some feedback about the exact thing that caused this crash.
What happened was that I chopped the throttle while I was just about on my left knee and doing about 80mph in a downhill off camber turn. It happens to be one of my favorite turns too. There I was hanging off and the thought ran through my mind “You’re going wide”. I did what I was taught; hook the turn by dropping my shoulders the rest of the way, about 6 more inches down and forward to help compress the front suspension. “You’re going wide”. And then it goes black briefly and then I’m thinking that this isn’t right – The gas tank should be closer to me. I kicked the bike away from me and then I’m rattling around in dirt. When I came to a stop I inventoried things and seemed ok. “Turn off the bike!”. I hopped up ran to the bike which was still running (love the 848 – falls down but it still wants to get back in to the game) – I hit the kill switch and then waved to the corner worker to let them know I was ok. I really wasn’t.
You know how in cartoons they show the little tweety birds and stars dancing around the character’s head? That was me. Then I notice the pain in my hand. I must have drug it on the pavement because the leather along the pinky was eaten up and there were three spots of bloody flesh. No biggie. Then my left elbow spoke up. It hurts. Still hurts nearly three weeks later. I figured that having fallen down at 80mphs things would be a bit rattled. No biggie.
Control rider shows up, checks me out. Confirms that I’m ok and tells the EMTs to stand down. We get my bike back up and he initially is going to have me ride it back. I’m thinking he is nuts. Remember the stars and tweety birds? Why can’t he see them? He comments that the shifter is broken and calls the crash truck down for me. We wait until the session is over and the truck arrives and takes me back to my pit area.
My friends from TSBA (Thanks Ben, Jim, Sean, and the rest) helped me put my bike back in the truck. Being a smartass I wrote on a piece of paper “It happens” and taped it to the side with the road rash. I thought it was funny. Then I drive home. It takes about an hour to drive from Cresson to Flower Mound. You’d think I’d be depressed but I wasn’t really. I put on Russ Martin and just drove home. I crashed. Learn from it and get over it. I know what I did that caused the crash; I was even warned about it. I’ve read about it. Everything was there. This crash didn’t have to happen. However, in hindsight I actually (despite the pain involved) think it was a good thing. A good thing if I learn.
First, if I had not panicked and chopped the throttle I would have gone through that turn. The only thing that would have come of it was “wow! That was fast”. This oddly would not have been a good thing because I’d just be setup for a different crash a little further along that might possibly be worse. Or maybe not, we will never know.
Me chopping the throttle was the last mistake in a chain of mistakes that led to me breaking my elbow. The first mistake occurred in the pits. I let myself get frustrated by the track day organizers. I’d just finished doing levels 3 & 4 and now I’m fast. I’m ready for a factory ride. These people don’t know who they are in the presence of. My attitude was all wrong. I just wanted to get on the track and go fast. Their stupid no passing on the inside rules and other crap were just getting in my way. Plus it was a weekend track day so every squid in North Texas was present and clogging things up. I mean my attitude was seriously out of line. I should really have better state management than that.
So that is where we get things going. My friend Ben is in front of me on the track (he is on a beautiful 749 – Ducati’s really sound good when they are running fast). In front of him are three slower riders and we are being held up. So I’m behind him and for some reason he makes a hand signal that I interpret as go around so I blast off passing him and two of the riders in front of him. I back off the lead rider because we are going in to a corner and we’ve been asked to not pass on the inside. See – I can follow rules occasionally. Anyway we go around the carousel and then start the right hander back on to the old track. I pass this guy on the outside and rocket through ricochet. I hit about 110 and just stay there, I don’t try to top end the bike. I go through the old track, enter the rattle snake and do the transition back to the new track. I noticed that I was going pretty fast there and ran a little wider than I meant (!). Down the front straight of the old track, and enter turn 1. I’m doing 80. I do this turn all day long at 60. I’m entering it about 20 faster than normal. I slam the bike over as fast as I am able and just a bit further along is where the little voice makes its presence felt. I’ve never experienced what Keith Code calls a survival reaction before. I thought I had, but I really had not. F! I’m running wide. The rest I’ve already told you about.
Four things I did caused this. First, I chopped the throttle. Second, I entered a corner way faster than I usually do. Third, I wasn’t really paying attention to my reference points. Fourth, I was letting my ego run free. Sometimes a little humility can keep you from being gravity’s ***.
How do I plan to avoid a repeat? First, I’ll be honest, I might fall down again. I think I’ve transitioned from being a noob to being somewhat fast. I’m closer to the edge than I was last year. Things will happen. But to keep things manageable I’m going to change a y on track strategy. I’m going to work on picking a line and a set of reference points that will keep me on that line and do my best to stay on that line. I change lines constantly. When talking to Keith Code about this he really didn’t like that I did that (“Do you think we don’t know where to put the markers?”). I think I took his “there is no line” thing too far. Next I’m going to find a pace around the track that I can do that I feel is fast, but comfortable. Then I’m going to try and keep all of the laps during a session within a 2 second variance of each other. Session to session I can get faster, but I don’t want to have big changes. That’s it, I don’t really think I need to change that much.
The next day, Sunday, my wife takes me to one of the walk in ER places. They X-Ray my elbow which is the size of a grapefruit. I have a 1cm fracture on the radial head. The little fat pad thing that goes between the bones is out of place too and there is a lot of fluid in there. The Doctor wants to drain (aspirate?) the fluid out. I don’t like the sound of that but he and my wife insist. Have I mentioned that I really hate medical stuff? In this case four inch long needle going in to my elbow takes it to a whole new level. It didn’t hurt. It is just the idea that freaks me right the F out. It is a friggin joint; you aren’t supposed to jam things in there. I don’t care if you went to school for twenty years to learn how. I did get him to show me the syringe afterward. 10ccs of blood were drawn out. My elbow did feel a lot better, but I nearly blacked out from the experience. My wife, who stoically held my hand the whole time, had to lie down afterward. I’m not sure I could have stayed in the room if roles were reversed.
The next Wednesday I went to the orthopedic doctor. No surgery, just physical therapy. My buddy Eric has been stretching my arm back out so that I won’t lose any range of motion. It hurts. That elbow draining thing – doesn’t even come close. Eric is good and very careful, but stretching muscles back in to place and getting scar tissue to move around just plain hurts. But I’d rather have the pain than lose any range of motion.
The Ducati has new Woodcraft rear sets to replace the pieces I broke. My friend Miykl sold me levers from his old Ducati to replace my broken clutch lever. I also added TechSpec pads b/c I really liked them on Keith’s bikes at Superbike School. The Ducati at the moment is at the shop having the grass that got caught in the tire (I mean inside the tire!) removed. North Texas Super Bikes is also going to check things over, get the scratched up fairing cleaned up and repainted. We’re also looking in to some race body work. As soon as Eric clears me I’m going back to the track and doing what Keith taught me to do: get around the corner without crashing.