Saturday turned out to be a great day. Joseph Neagle made an appearance near the end of the day. Was great to see his big smile and know he was pain free!!! It was a nice ending to a stressful week. I can tell he will be back riding and will soon forget the whole awful experience. I dont mean to single Joseph out...just that he came back to the track on crutches and all less than week from the time he broke his femur/hip. We think about and wonder how every rider is doing that has gone down and try to keep up watching their facebook pages or talking to them. Josephs dad mentioned that his rear shock is busted now and isnt 100% sure whether it happened before or after the wreck. Perhaps I am biased for my own feelings but I feel pretty confident it happened before. Joseph is a great rider who has been to the track many times. Hes over jumped the triple triples at least 400 times without incident. By the way, that is a 58 triple with a 60 flat section to the next jump. Some riders (like Joseph) are literally jumping nearly 120 off the triple...or twice the distance of the designed jump. This was done by design to support both C/D/85cc riders (an amazingly a few 65cc riders) while also giving top riders the opportunity to go fast and go big. There is no reason to think Joseph did it differently this particular time...nor has another rider wrecked in any of the triples since so it is hard to think it is the jump. Truth is, weve had riders endo on every jump in the park except 2. I really think he succumbed to the one risk in the sport that just happens...mechanical failures happen to even the mostly perfectly prepped bikes. We see it with pro races every weekend. Dungey could write at least 5 chapters about it...one of the craziest being the time he lost a bunch of gas after a wreck and had to refuel his bike to finish the last few laps. I too endod due to a blown rear shock. My day ended at Rausch creek years ago when my shock body unscrewed from the top cap as I went off a big double. I could have been Joseph...except I got pounded by a Yamaha Raptor ATV instead. There are definitely track owners out there better suited for track ownership. Some can simply shrug off injuries as just part of the sport. Connie and I feel the stress every time a rider gets hurt. I stress thinking about it before it happens and after it happens. It is hard to feel you are participating in riders getting head injuries, broken ankles, legs, arms, and collarbones. We are participating in something I love personally...and yet didnt want my own stepson pursuing. Even today, I dont want him getting back into the sport at age 28 simply because I choose to be involved in the sport. I know it is dangerous...and yet it is in my blood. I stressed yesterday at the track when 2 quad riders showed up. One is a regular who hits all the jumps and one was a friend who doesnt. I just had the feeling the friend was going to go down hard yesterday following his friend. I truly thought he was pushing it too soon and overriding his skill level. Watched him crash his helmet into his bars on a short landing. I truly wanted to pull him off the track. Thankfully nothing bad happened. The thing I wish we had in the sport was a simulator so riders could learn beforehand how to react in a bad situation. Too many try to advance too quickly that they really lack the skills to recover when something goes wrong. I see people get in and out of the sport so quickly...after one really bad mishap. Do I like tires and hay bales. I DONT!!! I wish I could just put track markers out and riders would make an imaginary line 12 inside of them. We cant afford to pay $5 each for 20 broken markers every weekend. That comes to about $400 a month. We tried not marking the track at all. Riders then cut into the drainage ditches which takes hours and hours to rebuild on the dozer. So, we are forced to use bales and tires. I truly hoped riders would respect them and stay away from them. Riders are stubborn though. The bales get tore up every weekend from footpegs. Honestly, I dont care at all about the bales...it is very minor damage and we have them strapped beyond how they are made. My true concern is that a rider will go down from catching a bale. We even tried keeping them outside of the groomed area. Moving on...we spent the weekend moving 330 of the front fence the recommended 30 away from the track to protect both spectators and riders. Many thought I was crazy. We do this because I want to take every reasonable precaution I can to protect the riders. When they do go down, I want to know that I did what I could. Same reason we put the triples inward from the tree line. Don think I am getting soft and we are thinking we dont want to be a part of this track or sport. Just want every rider to know I spend a lot of time thinking about rider safety and listening. We care...probably too much that it stresses us out! Several riders voiced concern about the positioning of the flag stands at the races. We are moving a few of them, lowering them so the flaggers can step right off of them. Mark (from NCMP) thought our starting turn and first jump were a safety hazard (too narrow). We widened all of it before the next race. We will continue to improve week by week. We have 3 more months to get a few more projects completed before I think back to how much has been done in our first year. Ok, that is my long post for the week...not really. There is another one coming out later tonight. :-)
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 14:21:54 +0000
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