Nelson Ledges w/ Moto Series 7/16/11

[blue03636]

He wasn't trying to pass that guy, he was in the same group.

[TSB67]

Assuming he was in the "green" group, looked like he was just trying to stay with them as they made a group pass and had a lapse of attention for both where he was on track and what the guy in front of him was doing.

I too think he "could have easily braked before that happened," but as a novice there could have been a number of factors he was uncomfortable with in that situation and just froze up.

[Mykill]

Yup. Looks like he didn't realize everyone was slowing down and before he knew it was on that guys ass. Atleast he avoided taking out the other guys so kudos for that.

[madcat6183]

Roger that, wasn't sure if it was a PM open where passing was okay when done safely. Yeah as a beginner I remember the oh shit moments too, but dzamn, that was a bad one.

Did anyone hear how he was doing? How bad was the bike, cuz that looked like it was F'd bad.

[redkow97]

I too think he "could have easily braked before that happened," but as a novice there could have been a number of factors he was uncomfortable with in that situation and just froze up.

this is my take as well.

It's a true "accident" as far as I can tell. From the way it was described previously, I was picturing a rider from the group being PASSED pushing him off track.

In actuality, it appears that the rider in the green shirt rolled off for some reason (i'll assume a legitimate one), and the RC51 didn't expect it, and tried to go around, but ran out of room.

Accidents like this become a fact of life when you're working with a group teaching format.

[j0ntar]

I can break this down a bit more as I am the rider in the green shirt.

This can be attributed to two things. The R6 in front of me(Brandon), and myself pushing our control rider a bit faster than we should be running in the beginners group, and a communication issue.

The communication issue was between the control riders, our control rider signaled for a pass and purple groups control rider did seem to acknowledge this, however coming up to the kink he took a hard inside line. This cut off green's control rider. At this point everyone should have stayed their lines, however two purple group riders also took the hard right line into the kink. This pushed green group over to twards the end of the road surface and what you see in the video is the result.

I ride with my "head up" a bit so i saw all this coming from early on which is why i slowed up. What you can not see very clearly is how bad the girl in the purple group came into my line, and our control rider slowing up big time.

I still feel a bit responsible. As he was trying his hardest to not hit me and at the same time save himself. We were pushing him for his fastest all day, and that was a bit selfish of us. I hope he has a speedy recovery. (which i hear he is)

[redkow97]

I don't think anyone's really trying to point fingers, but I appreciate your perspective.

Beginners are unpredictable. We all make mistakes, but beginners tend to make different mistakes.

In this case, it may have been several mistakes compounding into this incident.

Purple rider moving off line, or moving over suddenly. The crasher could have also been looking further up track to see the same thing YOU saw coming. And although it's counterintuitive at the track, leaving more distance between bikes might have helped as well.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. The important thing is that everyone will make a full recovery. It certainly sucks (hard) when crashes are painful and expensive, but no amount of figuring out how/why it happened takes away the pain or expense. Learn from it, and ride again another day.