MotoAmerica | 2024 | Road Atlanta | April 19-21

It had better suck. You'd be dead if it blew.

 

I’ve broken lots of bones but you guys with the internal organ injuries can have that shit… doesn’t sound like any fun at all

 

Yep, chest tube is the fucking worst. Dilauded (sp?) is pretty nice though. I was in Ocotillo Wells when this happened, so i did get my first chopper ride checked off the old bucket list.

 

I was fortunate enough to not need one, the first hospital let me sit in their ER for 4hrs with issues breathing before finally doing a CT scan and saying “just got off the phone with the trauma doc that’s taking your case, you’re going to Duke”. What a fun Christmas vacation riding trip that was

 

Callous AND stupid. I crushed a couple when an 87yo woman speared me on my bicycle. EMTs taped me to a backboard as soon as I said something and the orthopedic put me in a TLSO brace for 6 weeks.

 

As someone that crashed at Roebling and punctured both lungs and had 2 chest tubes for a week in ICU, 100% do not recommend.

 

Yeah the worst thing about a chest tube is that they don’t sedate you before stabbing you in the side of the chest.

 

These stories bring back some funny memories.

1st novice weekend at TWS in College Station (yellow shirt) and I'm feeling good on my 00 GSXR750. Im loving the infield but unfortunately I have to start in 2nd wave. So I'm picking guys off left and right through the infield when I like most overconfident racers blow the switch back coming down the hill T9 I believe. So I stand the bike up go straight and all I could say was oh crap...why?...because I knew I messed up bigtime. all I could see was air fence in front of me.

I grabbed the front brake as I left the asphalt and into the grasss/dirt the front tucked. I just remember silence as I hit the air fence but what I didn't realize was that I was actually flying through the air the air fence had catapulted me. (20 feet at least)

On the other side of the air fence was a tire wall and I landed butt first in a car tire Completely unhurt...when I woke up a few seconds later I was like what...where am I...huh...I checked my arms and legs then felt my chest and stomach. No way!!! Not even a scratch on my helmet.

 

Luckily I never had any leathers cut off.I always said no way! My redneck ass is too broke.My last get off was in a brand new first ride set of RST leathers
and an Arai I ordered from Germany that wasn't released here. Broke collar bone,again,I don't know how many ribs,and internal bleeding.
EMT's kept trying to get me to lay flat but I kept telling them the speed hump wouldn't allow me to lay flat .
I literally drug my head across the ground trying to get myself off the ground,and almost passed out.I did manage to take my leathers off,but the one
ride Arai was trashed.Stayed in the hospital for 4 days.
I also destroyed another Arai Luca cadalora replica in turn 2 Road Atlanta GNF in 3rd place.Guy fell in front of me,and I lost the front
end trying not to run over him.Bike somehow bounced up and ran over my head.I had a nice Dunlop tire impression in the helmet.
Made it back to the pits and did the "broken record" talk.Saying the same shit over and over. Buddy Kevin Moore drove me to the ER
The cousins kids play with the helmet now

 

I don’t know what’s worse…. Having the broken record talk or hearing it from a buddy seriously as at least when it’s you you don’t remember it

but the look on their faces I remember… worse face was from 97 on a buddy and his girl that came to see me in the ER… I had broken fingers and a knee and this was before surgery and I kept going in and out of consciousness as I had the worst concussion of my life… every time I woke up I’d see my crooked finger, that the tendons/ligaments pulled crooked and had to have screws and pins, and I’d say “oh my finger needs set… I’ll do it” on repeat… my first memory made was him begging the nurse to put a splint on my hand so if quit making them sick setting it…

still nothing compared to chest tubes I’m sure… I’ve broke so many of my ribs but luckily never had them go in, one barely broke the skin coming out but none in…

 

Luckily! Never any hand injuries,other than grinding down that bone on my wrist! The broken record repeating has almost brought me to tears.You know somethings wrong,but you can't put your finger on it.I almost started crying at talladega.I'm thinking to myself i have brain damage. I was soaked from crashing and it had been raining.A lady next to our pits gave me a dry t shirt to put on.I kepts asking over and over who's shirt was I wearing?
I then later see an ambulance pull up next to our pits.I'm thinking wow!! Somebodys Fd up!! And they walked right over to me! My buddy had gone and gotten them and off to Sylacauga again

 

Heat stroked out, while on the track, at Willow. I broke a collar bone, and ribs. My race buddy told me it was “replay” all day. Don’t have any recollection of the crash, but managed to get back to the pits (on the crash truck) and out of my leathers, before the emergency medical MF’ers showed up at my pit. Got the ambulance ride, and was released while still on repeat. I did manage to hot wire the race van, when the ignition switch failed in the parking lot of Antelope Valley hospital. There was NO way I was going back in there, for anything!

 

All the injury stories always make it so incredible to me that pros don't get injured more often. Are they good at crashing? Is their safety gear that much better?

 

Some of them do know how to crash well.I've also known/seen some really fast guys since 1987,and most of them have been under the knife several times.If you watch some of them change into leathers in the am you can catch Alot of scars. I remember Kevin Rentzell was all kinds of scarred up,and thinking fuck that! I don't wanna be fast at that price! I also remember Grant Lopez could crash 3 or 4 times in a weekend,give or take,but it was a bunch! Dude was crazy fast and fearless,and always got back up

 

You were always pretty funny post-crash! We all figured the brain damage was from way earlier in life...
The best Lopez crash was also at Talledega. He lowsided somewhere and came flying back to his truck (you remember that Ranger) that some of us were sitting on the tailgate. We noticed he was going pretty fast but nobody, even Grant himself, realized the brake lever was broken off. Right into the back of his own truck. With a few of us still on it.

 

I think the gear is certainly part of it. In the early 90s I had a Fieldsheer 2-piece with a Dainese back protector, which was a fairly recent thing. There was zero hard armor in the suit, just double-thick leather in a few spots with some (useless) soft foam between the layers. I still have a pair of Hatch gloves from back then. They're really thin with a couple spots of double leather and some soft padding on the top.

 

When I got taken out in the 2nd kink at the racetrack formerly know as BeaveRun, I got helo'd out to PittPresby. Woke up in the hospital not knowing WTF happened (I have zero recollection of any of the day and this was the 3rd session). 3 broke ribs, one broke and severely displaced collarbone and one hell of a concussion. How I didn't puncture a lung is a mystery. Anyways... I managed to call Mrs pjZocc to find out what happened, then called Gerbsch to find out what happened and where my son was (4 at the time) and who had my truck and toyhauler, then called Poper (who had my son and my rig) to find out if Joey was ok. Then I apparently repeated this cycle of calls, questions and conversations. According to those involved...


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