P110
CN
III IN THE PADDOCK
BY MICHAEL SCOTT
A
mong many Dorna docu-
ments, one of the more
fascinating is just in: "2016
Final Falls." It's not just a record
of how many crashes there were
during the past 18 races, and
who had the most of them, but
also a detailed blow-by-blow
analysis of just about every con-
ceivable aspect of the statistics.
Given that motorcyclists in
general like to talk about their
crashes, usually with amused
self-deprecation, looking back is
often pretty funny. Not quite so
much this year, however, given
that one of the 364 crashes in
Moto2 had fatal consequences
for Luis Salom. Motorcycle rac-
ing remains a dangerous pas-
sion.
Yet there is comfort in the fact
that while the total number of
crashes topped 1000 for the first
time in history—a total of 1062
representing an increase of 64
percent over the past decade
(just 647 in 2006)—Salom's fall
was the only one with truly major
consequences.
This is a tribute to both forms
of safety improvements—active,
in the case of better protec-
CRASH RECORD SMASHED
(AND ALL THE SMASHERS)
