Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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VOL. 53 ISSUE 24 JUNE 21, 2016 P111 ate, much of it the usual self- serving sick. Like the well-worn cliché: "He died doing what he loved." What, crashing? And naturally it made every- body very sad. A young life de- stroyed, a family bereft. You'd have to be very heartless not to have shed a tear or two. Grasping for positives, however, was the reason for it being such a shock. Fatalities in grand prix racing are nowa- days so very, very rare. The last two were both freak accidents, where instead of sliding out- wards at a tangent, fallen bikes and riders swerved back into the path of following machines. This is what claimed the lives of Marco Simoncelli in Malaysia in 2011 and Moto2's first-ever race winner Shoya Tomizawa at Misano the year before. The previous had been back in 2003, when Daijiro Katoh sus- tained fatal injuries at Suzuka. The statistics then are impressive. Four deaths in 14 years of racing. It is a far cry from the blood-soaked early days of the world champion- ships, when circuits were lined with trees and ditches, and when survivors like Honda's multi-champion Jim Redman re- called how you knew that if not every weekend, certainly every year you could be sure that you would lose some of your close friends and rivals. The numbers are a tribute to sustained hard work on all aspects of safety, both objec- tive and subjective. The former refers to the dangers of tracks and track- side furniture. This work be- gan in the 1970s, boosted by riders such as Kenny Roberts and Barry Sheene, and the subsequent formation of the abortive but highly influential breakaway World Series, in which erstwhile journalist and later part-founder of Riders For Health Barry Coleman played a key role. It was continued by Mike Trimby, first as riders' representative and then as founder and now secretary general of teams' association IRTA, and has been adopted with worthy enthusiasm also by Dorna. Riders owe a great deal (in- deed, in many cases their lives) to the above and their cohorts. Subjective safety continues to be radically enhanced by ever-improving safety equip- ment—for example, Kevlar-rein- forced kangaroo-hide leathers with fitted air bags, and well-re- searched crash-helmet design. All of which allows riders to take more risks than ever, and to fall off with a frequency that no rider of the early days could have contemplated. Just to add a layer of propor- tion, Salom's death coincided with the Isle of Man TT. There, in the course of a fortnight of practice and racing, no less than five riders lost their lives. All the airbags and back protec- tors under the sun couldn't protect them from the stone walls that, as one early com- mentator gruesomely put it, "are smeared with the flesh of heroes." Unlike some of the more than 240 victims before them, obliged to run in the TT by contract or for world champion- ship points, they raced there by choice. It is too late for them to change their minds. One can only have massive respect, possibly not unre- served, but respect all the same, for those who volun- tarily take on the challenge of the TT, well described by contemporary writer Rupert Paul as "a horizontal Everest." Respect also for any rider pushing the limits in the way required for modern grand prix success. But these deaths make me question something about my- self, about all of us race fans, TT supporters in particular. To what extent is our enjoyment the thrill of danger, but enjoyed vicariously, from the risk-free environment of the sofa? They died not doing what they loved, but what we love. What does that make us? CN