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IN E V T R IEW Daryl Beattie Then we went to Paul Ricard. Everything seemed qui te all right, just normal things, and we were struggling a bit with grip. I stuck a new tire on at the end to go out and try to just get on the front row, or make sure I was staying on the front row, and flicked into that lefthander really hard - being aggressive, 1 guess. It came back around on me and all I remember is being a million miles in the air. I remember the first part of the crash and that's it. I remember it being damn high . From that momen t on I don't really remember any thing apart from be ing in the medical center, not really being able to breathe because I had a lung full of blood and stuff. And I remember ga rgling ... the story goes on la ter. We had a little bit of trouble in there, like they couldn' t ge t needles in, th ey were pretty hopeless in there. I we n t to h os p it a l a n d th e y pu t me through machin es. I hadn't broken any ribs or any thing - they said they were compressed so much that it pun ctured my lung . I wa s put in intensive care for the night. All of tha t' s pretty vag ue to me, but I remember it. From then on, I never reall y fe lt like Daryl. basi ca lly. Tha t was w he re it rea ll y hit me. I'd wake u p every day thi nking, "Wh a t' s wrong?" I'd drive a car; I'd feel like an old man d riving a car, really having to focus on the car in front of me. No rmally, I can drive 200 kp h (125 mp h) wit h one hand and if so meone does something, you don't pa nic about it. I wen t and saw some guys in England . I had brain swelling and all the normal stuff when you bang your head so much. You had a fractured skull. Yeah , but they hadn't picked it up yet . I just didn't feel right: I was dizzy, I couldn't concentrate, I'd wander off. It wasn't until I got to Australia at the end of the year that I saw a guy there. I went and saw a neu rosurgeon and he did scans and stuff a nd he picked up the fracture on the left side. They did all the stuff there, like fluid in the blood to see if it 's leaking, and it was fine . That healed and I was still no t right. So I By Henny Ray Abrams Photos by Gold & Goose " "W haddya think he's gonna tell you? " one of my fellow professional skeptics asked when I told him I'd be interviewing Lucky Strike Suzuki's Daryl Beattie. Plenty, as it turns out. Daryl Beattie came into the Grand Prix world in 1993 with much advance fanfare and great promise. He 'd been chosen to partner fellow Australian Michael Dooha n on the Rothmans Honda works team after being groomed with a stint racing for Honda in the AlIJapan Championship . His first year went we ll, with Beattie finishing the season in thi rd , wi nning his firs t-ever 500cc Gra nd Pri x at the H ocken h e im ri n g in Ge rma ny. Then Rothmans deci ded to pull the plug and go car-racing in Formula One. Doohan was ret ain ed , but Beattie was o n the open market. He was qu ickly sna red by Kenny Robert s to partner Luca Cadalora on the Marlboro Yamaha team . The yea r w as not w itho u t its travails, as Beattie • a nd Cadalora both st ruggled wi th the Dunlop tires, wit h Cadalora even opting for a Dunlop /Michelin combination at one point. Then, a t the French Grand Prix in Le Mans, Bea tt ie los t his toes when his foot was caugh t in the cha in in the opening practice session. Roberts wa nted to keep him for 1995, bu t Marlboro did n't, and Beattie was again in search of a job - this time landing at Lucky Strike Suzuki as Kevin Schwantz's tea mmate and friend. The union was magical, and Beattie had his best year ever in GPs: second on the year with wins at Suzuka and the Nurbu rgring to go wi th the one he got on the Rothmans Honda in Hockenheim. The season ended, testing began, and Daryl Beattie's caree r was never the same. My con versation with Beattie took place in the Lucky Strike Suzuki mobile press office, the back part of a semitrailer, in the paddock of the City of Imola GP after the final timed session. Like most races, this one was a struggle, a nd he co u ld d o no be tte r th an 14th. Afte r eight o f 15 races, he' s in 12th place in the championship with 36 points. Nothing he a nd the tea m do w ith th e 1997 Suzuki XR-87 or the hyb rid 1996 /97 bike seems to work. The frustration has go tten so bad that his chief mechanic , Hamish Jamieson, 24 even took a leave of absence. He was meant to return for the Dutch IT prior to Imola . Some thought Beattie might·be reluctant to talk, but he was quite the opposite. Candid to a faul t, Beattie was volu ble; it almost seemed cathartic for the 27-y ea r-o ld Quce nsl a n d er to set the reco rd st raight a nd to dispel many of the ru mors which ha d been floa ti ng around since his inju ries began. Not only is his caree r different, he looks d if.ferent. Gone are the hea vily moussed long, da rk ringlet s, replaced by wha t looks like a number-one bu zz cu t. He " f "-- .:... --. : :,.w "r ~" L, : went and saw an ear- nose-a nd - throat • and hi s girlfriend, Meg Hooper, are expecting their first child in December. Since everything goes back to his tes t crash, that seemed like a good place to start. When d id Daryl Bea tt ie stop b ei n g Daryl Beatti e? Malaysia... testing (a t the end of 1995). It was pretty much the end of that test, the last day. Things were going really good, the lap times were grea t - better than the yea r before. We were happy with everything. And the bike seized goi ng into turn two: Flat in fourth gear, it locked up and threw me down the road. I was sort of like half-conscio us, serniconscious and stuff, trying to hang in there. That was about it, really. I go t a lift back on the scooter. I went to hospital and had some checks and they said I coul d go hom e. I we nt back to the hotel and guy and he did all the normal tests on my ea rs, and so me of the m came up a bit fun ny. So they did this test, I forge t started getting really di zzy, and wanting to fall asleep, and getting all funny. They raced me back to the hos pital and they said, "You've got to stay in there for the night." I never really got a diagnosis in Malaysia. It was obviously a concussion. I went home an d had a few weeks off and sort of started to feel all right. I didn't feel good. bu t I felt all right and went and raced. Then you did the first three races of the 1996 seaso n. I wasn't feeling too bad, but I wasn't as sharp as 1 had been. Th e n I started crashing again. I raced in Japa n and my result there wasn't too bad. I really struggled in practice and I think Scott (Russell) finished third and 1 was fourth. In Jerez, I crash ed , but I didn't ban g my head. I banged my feet and stuff, and I was a bit sore . After Jerez, I was fine . what they call it, where they shoot an anesthetic in your ear to numb it; then they get a big needle and push it in through your ear drum to you r middle ear; then they can hook it up to a machine and thev check the graphs - the waves. The left "-as all right and they put it in the rig ht and it was just way up . From then on, I wen t and had su rgery and the guy said no rmally if they fin d a 20 pe rcent d ifference they know that there's a hole in your middle ear. Mine was 300 percen t. So I went a nd had surgery. Eve n after surgery they said I would n' t feel right. At the end of th at month, February, I was go ing to have to make a decision as to wh ether I wo uld rid e or not. The only ot her option was to go to Canada , and see a guy who did la ser treatment. It w as pretty expens ive, wi th a big, long