Should road racing on closed public roads continue?
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S2K-Aaron
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Seen this last night. Maybe give a few of those looking in from the "outside" a little bit of a insight
S2K-Aaron
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My bad, Didn’t see it mentioned in this thread just
I'm putting my head over the parapet here but as a biker (and road race fan) there are 3 responses to this debate that feature on forums throughout the land and absolutely baffle me!
1. 'Hardly the time to discuss this given what has just happened'
This strikes me as sticking the head in the sand.
A person has just died. Of course it's the right time to proactively discuss what went wrong/how it could have been avoided/could it happen again/what could be done to make things safer.
Avoiding the topic does not indicate respect to the dead rider or their bereaved family.
To my mind it indicates a lack of respect for the next man to line up on the grid and his family/dependants sitting at home...
2.'They died doing what they loved' (with the conclusion therefore it's ok)
Why (and how) should doing what you love validate your death? Society would be chaos if we all just did what we wanted all the time.
Life should be lived to the full but also with an eye to responsibilities that life throws your way.
Wives, kids and families will be living for the rest of their lives with an empty chair at the table. I really doubt that knowing their husband/dad/son enjoyed racing eases their pain...
3. 'You're not a road racer therefore your opinion doesn't count'
I agree that people who are totally uninformed about the sport should not have a meaningful say about it's future.
But I also think that sometimes things can be seen from the outside looking in that have become the commonly accepted norm on the inside.
Yes, the riders know the risks, but surely those same risks are glossed over by the rewards on offer, adrenaline hits and the assumption that 'it'll never happen to me'...
My opinion is that Road Racing should not be banned but also that some dramatic changes are needed in the immediate future.
Some small national races with zero budget for course improvements or safety features need to close. Power and speed gains have made them unfeasible for modern machinery.
International races which attract massive crowds (and have huge revenue potential) need to step up and make changes. Trees/Walls/Poles/Manholes all need to be taken down at dangerous areas of the track. Run off areas need to be introduced in others (Guy Martins life almost certainly saved by this in UGP crash)
As spectators, we are a contributing factor to the sport.
The fact that we buy a programme and watch the highlights on TV all helps makes the race possible in the first place. Therefore, the drive for changes surely needs to come from us (bikers/spectators) who want to see the sport continue with fatalities decreasing...
If no changes are made, it can only be a matter of time until the powers that be enforce bans anyway.
1. 'Hardly the time to discuss this given what has just happened'
This strikes me as sticking the head in the sand.
A person has just died. Of course it's the right time to proactively discuss what went wrong/how it could have been avoided/could it happen again/what could be done to make things safer.
Avoiding the topic does not indicate respect to the dead rider or their bereaved family.
To my mind it indicates a lack of respect for the next man to line up on the grid and his family/dependants sitting at home...
2.'They died doing what they loved' (with the conclusion therefore it's ok)
Why (and how) should doing what you love validate your death? Society would be chaos if we all just did what we wanted all the time.
Life should be lived to the full but also with an eye to responsibilities that life throws your way.
Wives, kids and families will be living for the rest of their lives with an empty chair at the table. I really doubt that knowing their husband/dad/son enjoyed racing eases their pain...
3. 'You're not a road racer therefore your opinion doesn't count'
I agree that people who are totally uninformed about the sport should not have a meaningful say about it's future.
But I also think that sometimes things can be seen from the outside looking in that have become the commonly accepted norm on the inside.
Yes, the riders know the risks, but surely those same risks are glossed over by the rewards on offer, adrenaline hits and the assumption that 'it'll never happen to me'...
My opinion is that Road Racing should not be banned but also that some dramatic changes are needed in the immediate future.
Some small national races with zero budget for course improvements or safety features need to close. Power and speed gains have made them unfeasible for modern machinery.
International races which attract massive crowds (and have huge revenue potential) need to step up and make changes. Trees/Walls/Poles/Manholes all need to be taken down at dangerous areas of the track. Run off areas need to be introduced in others (Guy Martins life almost certainly saved by this in UGP crash)
As spectators, we are a contributing factor to the sport.
The fact that we buy a programme and watch the highlights on TV all helps makes the race possible in the first place. Therefore, the drive for changes surely needs to come from us (bikers/spectators) who want to see the sport continue with fatalities decreasing...
If no changes are made, it can only be a matter of time until the powers that be enforce bans anyway.
I would be a fairly casual supporter of road racing and would prefer not to see it banned. But hands up, I just ride a road bike, I have never raced and I have no real connection to racing, so I don't feel as passionate about it, either way, as others do.
The bit about Mount Everest in the Samantha Wanless blog (Polobrats link ^) was a comparison I hadn't heard before and sounds stronger than the usual horseriding argument.
Also, I think about TT riders that checked out early by a totally different chance, like Hailwood or Hislop.
Or Nicky Hayden, just riding a pushbike.
As a modern society we are running out of really risky things to do. There's always going to be a group of people who demand a high risk activity and motorcycle road racing is up there with basejumping or Everest climbing or whatever.
One life, live it.
The bit about Mount Everest in the Samantha Wanless blog (Polobrats link ^) was a comparison I hadn't heard before and sounds stronger than the usual horseriding argument.
Also, I think about TT riders that checked out early by a totally different chance, like Hailwood or Hislop.
Or Nicky Hayden, just riding a pushbike.
As a modern society we are running out of really risky things to do. There's always going to be a group of people who demand a high risk activity and motorcycle road racing is up there with basejumping or Everest climbing or whatever.
One life, live it.
Agree with everything you say, a lot of road racing courses were set out many years ago and the performance of modern bikes far, far exceeds the safety features, road surfaces etc. As you have already stated the bigger events will need to look at trying to mitigate some of the risk by taking out walls, introducing run off areas etc, the smaller events may be able to survive by making courses more technical and put in artificial chicanes to slow the riders down. I know a lot of people, competitors included dont like that but surely it's better than losing the event or another rider losing their life
big-lew18
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I think i have already said this, maybe in this discussion or in another but, I was at the meet the riders night for the UGP, and one thing that they all agree'd on was that the UGP was the best road race in the world because it hasn't been toyed with. It still had its natural flow, and it was bigger so slightly more adapt to the bigger bikes. Alot of riders will say that the first few road races are only to dial the bikes in for the TT
An emotive subject in this country which has so much history with the sport. I think the problem is that everyone gets to a stage where they are so good at a particular circuit that it's the ones who push the boundaries are the only people who have a chance of winning. There is a lot of money pumped into machinery and squeezing every last drop of performance from them. Road racing 600's i'd wager are just as quick as ordinary road litre bikes when you take the power to weight ratio and so on into account.
I think limiting the power of the machines is the way forward or perhaps having a minimum weight limit. Does road racing need to be banned? Not in my opinion. Are changes required? Yes, i think so. Riders dying is bad enough but it's only a matter of time before a spectator or group of spectators is killed or maimed. Then there's a really big problem and it WILL be banned without a doubt and no one will be able to do a thing about it. Riders know what can happen and they CHOOSE to race. Perhaps a manufacturer could be approached to supply a single model series or something, I'm not sure of the practicalities of that though.
**WARNING - I'M GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE VIDEO BUT IT'S NOT A GRAPHIC DISCUSSION**
** DO NOT READ ON IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW MY THOUGHTS**
**FINAL WARNING, MY THOUGHTS ARE FOLLOWING THIS STATEMENT**
I was sent the video, didn't know what it was until I'd opened it, regardless, it was too fast for anything to be seen really. Obviously it was a crash and we know it resulted in a death but looking at the facts of the matter there was absolutely NOWHERE else he could have ended up and nothing to soften the impact. It was a relatively straight bit of road seemed to be coming off a bend, I'm not familiar with the layout of the circuit but i imagine it's not somewhere you would think someone is liable to crash hard. Had he hit the other side of the road, someone else would have been killed, there's no doubt about it. Obviously very high speed, even on a track he could well have ended up very badly off even with runoff areas and crash barriers. I'm also surprised a marshall wasn't also taken out. Also worth noting, it's fortunate in a way that no other rider was involved, they could easily have been given how quickly they were following along not knowing what had happened. As for the guy videoing, it's not his fault a crash occured while he was recording, I was recording plenty at the Silverstone MotoGP and caught Marquez crashing in practice. Sure, he maybe shouldn't have sent it on to someone else but he couldn't possibly have prevented the widespread distribution of it, if it hadn't been him, it would have been someone else. Nothing escapes the dreaded smartphone and their videos or pictures these days. There are worse videos in circulation I can safely assure you all. Maybe, just maybe someone can learn something from it in terms of prevention, I don't know.
If it's of any comfort to anyone, given the forces involved I'd be pretty certain he was out cold and didn't know a thing about it.
I think limiting the power of the machines is the way forward or perhaps having a minimum weight limit. Does road racing need to be banned? Not in my opinion. Are changes required? Yes, i think so. Riders dying is bad enough but it's only a matter of time before a spectator or group of spectators is killed or maimed. Then there's a really big problem and it WILL be banned without a doubt and no one will be able to do a thing about it. Riders know what can happen and they CHOOSE to race. Perhaps a manufacturer could be approached to supply a single model series or something, I'm not sure of the practicalities of that though.
**WARNING - I'M GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE VIDEO BUT IT'S NOT A GRAPHIC DISCUSSION**
** DO NOT READ ON IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW MY THOUGHTS**
**FINAL WARNING, MY THOUGHTS ARE FOLLOWING THIS STATEMENT**
I was sent the video, didn't know what it was until I'd opened it, regardless, it was too fast for anything to be seen really. Obviously it was a crash and we know it resulted in a death but looking at the facts of the matter there was absolutely NOWHERE else he could have ended up and nothing to soften the impact. It was a relatively straight bit of road seemed to be coming off a bend, I'm not familiar with the layout of the circuit but i imagine it's not somewhere you would think someone is liable to crash hard. Had he hit the other side of the road, someone else would have been killed, there's no doubt about it. Obviously very high speed, even on a track he could well have ended up very badly off even with runoff areas and crash barriers. I'm also surprised a marshall wasn't also taken out. Also worth noting, it's fortunate in a way that no other rider was involved, they could easily have been given how quickly they were following along not knowing what had happened. As for the guy videoing, it's not his fault a crash occured while he was recording, I was recording plenty at the Silverstone MotoGP and caught Marquez crashing in practice. Sure, he maybe shouldn't have sent it on to someone else but he couldn't possibly have prevented the widespread distribution of it, if it hadn't been him, it would have been someone else. Nothing escapes the dreaded smartphone and their videos or pictures these days. There are worse videos in circulation I can safely assure you all. Maybe, just maybe someone can learn something from it in terms of prevention, I don't know.
If it's of any comfort to anyone, given the forces involved I'd be pretty certain he was out cold and didn't know a thing about it.
I haven't seen the video and don't particularly want to, but I've read the above by @Dusty and have no issue with it.
Yes, nothing escapes the smartphone these days, but I think the responsible thing to do in a case like this is, rather than posting it online, offer the video to the Police, Garda, or Race control only. It might contain info that is of use to an investigation and hopefully then wouldn't be leaked.
I think people just want to get a pat on the back for being first to post some big story rather than just going to the authorities.
It's the same with lost stuff; you see things on facebook like hi everybody here's a photo of a wallet I found in the shopping centre, let me know if it's yours and I'll hand it back...... FFS, Just hand it to the security or the police like old times.
Yes, nothing escapes the smartphone these days, but I think the responsible thing to do in a case like this is, rather than posting it online, offer the video to the Police, Garda, or Race control only. It might contain info that is of use to an investigation and hopefully then wouldn't be leaked.
I think people just want to get a pat on the back for being first to post some big story rather than just going to the authorities.
It's the same with lost stuff; you see things on facebook like hi everybody here's a photo of a wallet I found in the shopping centre, let me know if it's yours and I'll hand it back...... FFS, Just hand it to the security or the police like old times.
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