Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128346
raves Motorsports Yamaha's Aaron Gobert awoke from an induced coma 3 I months ago to find his body shat" teredoThe tibia and fibula of his right ~ ~ leg were broken , as was his right 'S" ankle. He had broken his right collarbone, . shoulder blade and multiple ribs, one of which had punctured his lungs, causing them to collapse. There may have been vertebrae damage . The total ran to 19 bo ne s. And there was a head injury, but minimal bleeding and no swelling. It could have been worse. Hea ding up the banking exiting the chicane at Daytona International Speedway, the middle Gobert brother was involved in a multibike accident with , among others, his older bro the r Anthony. Antho ny ran into him and that was a good thing. At the time, Anthony said that it changed Aaron's tra jectory, saving him fro m a possi bly fatal head-on cras h into the wall. "It's bee n really hard ," Aaron said at the end of the Rep sol Supe rstoc k race at Virginia Inte rnatio nal raceway. He said it was hard for others to understand how his fiancee , Melanie Riley, pe rsevered "because thr e e mo nths straig ht laying o n th e co uch, not being able to wa lk, allt hat kind of stuff, to come back now. I've on ly just been able to start running fo r training t his year. Th ings are good . It fee ls like it's paying off. There are a lo t of times I think to myself, ' Is th is really worth it?' I seem to be training really hard just to ge t back to normal health , fitness for racing. I really appreciate everything. "I think I told Chuck Graves when I first came over here in 200 I - I said, 'I'll win your first championshi p for you : Here I am four years later finally doing it for him:' It was a very good day for the Graves Moto rspo rts team at VIR. Jaso n DiSalvo ran awa y w ith the victo ry, the team's seventh in I I races, Jamie Hacking was third , and Gobert G www.cyclenews.com won his first AMA pro t itle by finishing fourth . The race had been pos tponed fo r three weeks by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan, and the delay had been brutal. "You wa it and wait and wait for it, and you finally get it," Gobert said. "It's been a hard three or four extra weeks, but that's what we had to do:' The drama going into the race didn't match the race itself. This was the closest of the three championships , with three riders within five points of each other. Aaron Gobert had the lead, w ith Hacking and Kawasaki's Tommy Hayden tied for secon d - five points back. DiSalv jumped away from the pole, never to be o headed. Lap after lap he stretched his advantage, slowly at first, then in bunches. It took until the fifth lap for DiSalv to build a one-second gap on Yoshimura o Suzuki's Ben Spies. Then it went over two to three and allthe way to nine before DiSalvo backed off on the final run to the flag to celebrate, a clenched fist in the air. "This was the kind of race that I've been looking fo r all yea r, a race win like this, and I'm glad that I got o it," DiSalvo said, the New Y rker having set new rec o rds by averaging 93 .026 mph in winning the race . Spies chased DiSalvo allthe way, never losingsecond place , but not gaining o nce his visio n was compromised in the early running. He didn't know if it was sweat or soap, or a combination, but he couldn't see anything. "About three laps in a row, I was having to open my visor and wipe my eyes out," Spies said. "It got okay for about fo ur laps . a 27.1, 27 .3 right in a row. Then got into a traffic [am and rode like a tool for the rest of the race." On the cool-down lap, he nearly ran off the track and wrecked. ''I've had sweat in my eyes. It's never been that bad," Spies said. Grave s Motorsports' Yamaha's Hacking go t away third befo re losing the spot to Kawasaki's Roger Lee Hayde n. By the third lap Roger Lee was haVing shifte r problems, an d by t he sixth lap he was ou t. CYCLE NEWS • OCTO BER 20, 2004