1999 World Superbike Nürburgring - The Oil Spill
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Stumble ThisFrom the 1999 Superbike World Championship season, race # 6 - Nürburgring, Germany. Every source on this video has pretty much the same description:
"Probably the worst race organization the World Superbike Championship has ever seen. The marshals at the Nurburgring just stand and watch as top riders fall on oil."
How did they let the race continue with all those crashes?
"Probably the worst race organization the World Superbike Championship has ever seen. The marshals at the Nurburgring just stand and watch as top riders fall on oil."
How did they let the race continue with all those crashes?
That's what I would have done.
You've got to feel sorry for backmarker Kraus (#73) who got punted off by Foggy though; he didn't really do too much wrong except to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and get side-swiped by Foggy which was a pretty shitty thing to do. Yes, there should have been a blue flag (aka the "There's a Race Going on but You're Not In It" flag) out so he knew the leaders were coming through.
Oil on the track is a nightmare; you don't know it's there until you're sliding along on your arse, watching the bike tumble and thinking "oh no, not again". Been there, done that. Many times.
Great to see Aaron Slight out there too - one of the reasons I ride as #111.
To be fair to the marshals, they work under direction of race control so it's not their fault that they weren't told to hang out the slippery surface flag. They were doing their job with the waved yellow when the first rider went down (you can see it in the clip) but they have to be instructed for all other flags.
You've got to feel sorry for backmarker Kraus (#73) who got punted off by Foggy though; he didn't really do too much wrong except to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and get side-swiped by Foggy which was a pretty shitty thing to do. Yes, there should have been a blue flag (aka the "There's a Race Going on but You're Not In It" flag) out so he knew the leaders were coming through.
Oil on the track is a nightmare; you don't know it's there until you're sliding along on your arse, watching the bike tumble and thinking "oh no, not again". Been there, done that. Many times.
Great to see Aaron Slight out there too - one of the reasons I ride as #111.
Thanks I was wondering what he meant by a blue flag. So there's a flag to let you know you're better off packing your bags?
Why aren't they getting hurt when they crash? Is it because they're not going that fast around turns?
Partly, but I think it's just really well set up between the course boundaries and the suits they wear. It's pretty impressive that they're not too bothered about crashing.
Why aren't they getting hurt when they crash? Is it because they're not going that fast around turns?
If you low side a bike (dropping the bike on top of you) and you are wearing the proper gear 90% of the time you'll be fine.
The reason most motorcyclists get hurt is because while you are sliding you smack into something.
When you high-side the bike (go flying over it) that's a lot more dangerous because the bike is throwing you. So it's your speed + the bike chucking you and you get slammed into the ground. This is much more dangerous.
After that impact you will hopefully just slide it out.
If you wear a t-shirt, wife beater, regular jeans, shorts, sandals, no gloves, cheap leather jacket or pants, 3/4 helmet, shorty helmet and you fall at speed? There is a 99% chance you WILL suffer some sort of serious injury.
Thanks I was wondering what he meant by a blue flag. So there's a flag to let you know you're better off packing your bags?
Yes, the blue flag is shown to warn riders that the race leaders are about to lap them. You're supposed to be nice and get off the racing line so the leaders can pass unhindered and you then rejoin.
This is why it's otherwise known as the "there's a race going on and you ain't in it" flag
As for comments about why they're not hurting themselves, the type of crash (a "low-side" where the bike falls due to loss of grip) means that the energy is spent by the rider sliding along the tarmac. The idea is that the run-off (usually grass and then "kitty litter" gravel) will dissipate this energy so you are taken away from the track and slowed down without hitting a barrier. That's not to say that injuries don't happen; should you be rolling or catch something and start to tumble, you're likely to break bones as your arms/legs go flailing. This whiplash will dislocate limbs if you're lucky and break them if you're not. Wayne Rainey was paralysed from the chest down in one such incident while racing in 1993.
Modern riding kit helps a lot; leather is still very difficult to beat (some use Kangaroo leather, others use Stingray skin!) and with reinforced areas and protectors (usually for knees, elbows, shoulders, back and chest) it means you can walk away from a 200mph slide.
For sheer bone-breaking madness, you really don't want to "high-side" a bike. This is where the rear of the bike will lose traction and start to slide. This has the dual effect of tilting the bike and moving it off axis of the direction of travel, like a handbrake turn in a car. This also compresses the rear suspension, usually a single shock absorber. The problem comes when, due to the rear wheel slowing down through sideways motion, the rear wheel grips again. At this point the bike will now try to rotate around the horizontal axis (from one side to the other) due to the sudden grip stopping the slide. This gives the rear suspension a chance to uncompress, and has the effect of firing the rider out of the seat. Give it enough speed, slide and compression and you've just invented the Motorcycle Ejector Seat.
For some great crashes in MotoGP, the bike equivalent of Formula 1, have a look here (fast forward to 5m10s)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLZEKQHyxMI
And yes, if you watched the #1 crash, Jorge Lorenzo really did break *both* his ankles in qualifying, but went on to race and came 4th!