Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

F or many road racers, the Daytona 200 is the r aeing event of the year. This year, 22-year old AMA Expert Mike Clarke of Downey, California, was "pumped" for Daytona. Like everybody else, the dream of winning Daytona was always in the back of his mind. On March 13. (race day) , the dream came close to dying with Clarke in one of the most spectacular Daytona crashes - a hairy 170 mile per hour. sixth gear get-off that sent him skidding and tumbling over 200 yards down the back straight. through the chicane. and through a wall of haybales. In 1975 , Team Suzuki rider Barry . Sheene crashed on the front straight in practice, due to a tire failure . His 170 mph-plus endo left him with broken rib s, lim bs and other serious injuries. All Mike Clarke got out of his crash was road rash on his shoulders, back and hands, and a broken foot . Most riders have never been as lucky as Clarke, A six-year veteran of road racing with the last four as an Expert, Clarke has had a rather modest career on the asphalt. National Number 54 doesn't have a big-time factory ride , but Clarke receives partial sponsorship from Sudco, the Los Angelesbased Mikuni carburetor distributors. The rest of the cash it takes to field two TZ750s and a TZ250 comes from his father . "As a privateer, 1 felt like 1 was doing really good." said Mike . "until this happened at Da ytona ." Daytona began as a " ha rd week" of practice attempts and seized motors. with Clarke going through four 750cc engines before he was abl e to keep one working long enough to qualify. "1 blew up three motors before qualifying," he explained. "Finally, 1 didn't have any practice time left. 1 finally took myoid motor out of myoid bike (a TZ750C) and put it in my new bike (a TZ750D , or "OW 31 replica") and rode the qualifying lap. The first qualifying lap it seized , and then we changed motors again for the last qualifying session. 1 qualified 11th o fou rth American. 1 felt reall y good about the whole th ing." Asid e from having four motors seize on him. Clarke had no ot her p roblems. No premonitions or bad feelings . nothing. "We just kept working on the motors and got them all together. Finally. they were working really good the day of the ra ce." It looked as if things would be alright for Mike on race day. Eleventh wasn't a bad place to start. and a good finish would help out a whole lot. That's what counts. One last practice session for those who had qualified for the 200 was scheduled. All Mike Clarke had to do was to get the track sorted out in his head, make sure that his brand-new monoshock TZ750D was dialed in , and he would have it made. Clarke was tapped out in sixth gear on the back straight. making his approach into th e chica ne. His tach indicated 11.000 rpm . or about 170 mph. Then it happened. Another rider passed Clarke and drifted low. then suddenly pulled to the outside, backing Clarke up against the crash wall . The other rider then started braking early before the three marker - too early. Clarke's bike's front wheel momentarily touched the other bike's rear wheel, and Clarke fell. " I just didn't expect him to brake at all ." said Clarke. " I was going to brake early and I could've fallen in behind him. But he just sat up and grabbed the brakes, "When 1 brake for the chicane, I go a little bit past the two marker. The guy that caused the accident . . . he pulled a little in front of me . right along side of me, and pushed me all the way up against the wall , When I got up against the wall . I was getting ready to slow down . but he jumped on the brakes at about the three-and-a-half marker or so. The next thing you know . we just touched just barely touched - but at 170 mph. just touching is . . . there's no traction at that type of speed. We just touched, And the next thing' know . I was just - downJ" . The front end of the TZ slid out, and the whole bike fell out from under Clarke and began its long skid down the straightaway ahead of him. The monoshock Yamaha cleared a path for its pilot. smashing through the haybales as it skittered through the chicane. Clarke was first sliding on his shoulders, and then on his back. Suddenly, he started flipping and flopping end-over-end down 10 Mike Clarke Stepping off big at Daytona: What's it feel like to endo at 110 m.p.h.? By Rex Reese the track. the friction tearing into his leathers and helmet. What took seconds seemed much longer to Clarke as he slid. "W hen I hit him . it happened so fast. But from the second we touched . everything seemed to go into kind of a slow-motion thing. It just seemed like I was flipping and falling for like 15 or 20 minutes, you know . when it was actually a couple of seconds. "T he front end went out from under me . and I slid down on my shoulder. All I could think about was trying to get off that shoulder, because it was . burning through really bad. I got turned on my back. then I felt that burn through. Then' jumped around , then I started flipping. And from then , I . can't remember very much of anything, ..As I was turning and stuff, I knew the bike was in front of me somewhere. I went kind of through the hay bales. and the bike broke them before I ever got to them . When I went through those, I knew the bike was way ahead of me. When I finally stopped, I looked up and I could see bikes coming down the straightaway. , had a broken foot and a lot of abrasions, and I was hurting pretty bad, but I jumped up and ran off the race track. I didn't know I had a broken foot or anything. I just didn't think about it. "A lot of things were going through my head when I was crashing - about how bad I could've got hurt , or how fast I was going. and when would I ever stop," Dazed. bruised and bleeding. Clarke was taken to the hospital where doctors spent four hours patching hi m up. Outside of the broken foot, the most serious injury was the terrible road rash on Mike 's back and shoulders as a result of his long slide. At first , the doctors wanted to give him skin grafts , but Clarke insisted on being bandaged up instead. The KRW helmet people gave Clarke a couple of plane tickets. and he immediately flew back to California to recuperate. Sin ce his retu rn home. Clarke is very optimistic about his recovery. "T he doctors here say that the skin grafts are not necessary." Clarke said. "And they had to reset my foot , I feel the doctors here are a lot better than back there. Maybe another couple of weeks , and I'll be completely healed up ," Clarke's riding gear and bike bear mute testimony to the effect of the crash, His TZ750 now' has a bent frame, The fairing was shattered. The aluminum alloy gas tank looks as if an elephant stepped on it. The radiator. foot pegs, and seat were totally trashed. "T here's a couple thousand dollars worth of damage anyway." said Mike as he evaluated the remains of his Yamaha. His leathers took most of the abuse. Large ragged, gaping holes on the shoulders and back show the areas where Clarke spent most of his time sliding and tumbling. .., feel that the safety equipment saved my life ." Clarke said. " I wear ABC leathers. and they lasted so good, it was unreal. , feel like if I had any other kind of leathers on , I would've been scraped up 10 times as bad. The KRW helm et' wear, it also saved my life. The cr ash took every bit of paint down to the fiberglass on a lot of places on the helmet. but I walked away from it without even a headache. " I used to be a water ski ra cer ." said Clarke, "and I learned how to fall . Once you start flipping and stuff. there's nothing that you can do . But. when you're sliding along. you can kind of save yourself if you just watch out for it . But once you start flipping , there's not much you can do , and I'm sure that's when I broke my foot. "I believe in luck a lot. But , unless it's you r time to be hurt really bad, it's not going to happen ntrmatter what. "Sometimes, a guy will fall off in front of the motorcycle, and the motorcycle will jump up and down on him and hurt him really bad. I feel that's where I was lucky," Clarke attributed the accident to the lack of experience of the rider who pulled out in front of him during practice. If it wasn't for that. Clarke would have been on the starting grid. But it could have been much worse if the accident had happened during the start of the race. "It would've been a catastrophe. " explained Clarke. "There would've been probably 30 people on the ground, and people would've really started getting hurt. I know 1 would've gotten run over. and that would be just - crazy! There's nothing you can do about it ," Clarke wants to slow down the top speeds currently reached in today's races. " I just think that 200 mph is too fast for anything, For motorcycles. that's for sure. I think that the speeds and horsepower are way ahead of the chassis and tire development . Goodyea r's made a good tire for that kind of speed, but it's nowhere good enough to last 200 miles at that speed. "If they slow the bikes down to something like 150 or 160 mph . that would solve the problems with tires , Every tire company could be competitive. The spectators would see closer racing. The bikes four years ago were going nowhere as fast . and the crowd (at Daytona) was just as big then as it is now. So I don't credit the top speeds for drawing spectators... Stepping off at 170 mph has given Mike Clarke a new perspective on road racing: either slow down the bikes or slow down the track. It can happen to somebody else; and maybe they won't be quite as lucky as Mike Clarke. (Pat Evans died after crashing at 165 mph at Imola, Italy on Apn"l J, Evans ' bike tumbled with and on him, inflicting f atal back, chest, and brain inj uries. However , it should be pointed out that racers were crashing - and dying - long before motorcycles went over 150 mph . . . Ed.) . •

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