Big Shunt at Willow in the WERA Race Group Today

Happened between #2 & #3 on the straight. Sent two riders to the hospital with major injuries. Rumor is a third bike had a front row seat to the incident. If anyone saw what happened, please contact me or post up here. Just trying to understand what happened.

Regards,
Gerry

 

Got the rider out of the Hospital this afternoon. Two broken verts, punctured lung, bruised lung, concussion, dislocated shoulder, three broken ribs, multiple bruises & contusions (aren't those the same?), busted blood vessels in the eye, legs and ankles beat up. Hands and knuckles beat up. Not a single cut! The Aplinestars GP2 suite did the job and the inflatable vest did what it could. That area he went down in, inside of track between 2 & 3 is one hell of a rock garden. The Scorpion helmet is cracked almost in half, you can see into it from the outside. Apparently after he got hit on the left side by a mystery white bike, he hi-sided off the right side and then left the track and went ass over tea kettle down the hill, (i.e. cracked helmet). Right side of the bike is hurt. Left side is perfect! Rider took a little nap and doesn't remember a thing after trying to save the bike after the hit on the left. Probably a good thing!

All in all six weeks of rehab and a pile of parts and see you in Buttonwillow in August!

Regards,

 

Will do.

 

I was the rider that was hit. I was hit on my left side and taken out while entering T3.

I broke my left clavicle, left scapula, left ribs 4, 5, and 6, punctured my left lung, contusion on my left lung, damaged my pancreas, and broke my right thumb. I was sedated then admitted into surgery. I have a lot of metal in me now. My next surgery is in about 2 weeks.

I was just released from the hospital.

My bike looks like discarded tinfoil.

 

Holy hell..

 

Man, so sorry to hear that you got beat up that bad. That makes two riders that were taken out in the same shunt but at just slightly different locations. My wife and I spoke with someone from your team (your wife maybe) during the Red Flag. We were booth at the 2WTD tent and they couldn't tell us anything. We never got a chance to exchange information.

Our rider remembers a white fairing coming in from the his left and making contact with him on the left side but this happened just after the exit of Turn 2. He was on riders right/middle of the track, on the straight between 2 & 3, just heading for #3 in a straight line. He was high-sided after the contact about a 1/3 of the way between 2 & 3 and went down the hill, inside the track, riders right. During the Red Flag, a rider in our session came in and reported that a rider on a BWM (red/white/blue) was riding dangerously and involved in the incident. That BMW rider has not come forward and could not be found after the session anywhere in the pits. Additionally, nobody showed up for the WERA race this weekend riding a Red/White/Blue BMW and our group with 2WTD was reserved specifically for the WERA racers, in other words licensed racers.

I saw your bike on the trailer, they brought it in with ours. Both of them looked to be really heavily damaged but that pales in comparison to the injuries.

If you are able, at sometime in the near term, would you be willing to get on a call an talk through what you remember from the shunt? We are trying to piece together what happened.

Regards,
Gerry

 

Thanks for the information. You can message me your email and we can establish dialog from there.

 

Kids were getting suspension work when the incident happen. At the time we only saw one bike in a odd area of the track and we all wondered how it could of got there? Then two more ambulances responded to the scene (total of three). Everyone was surprised when the crash truck brought back two bikes. Wasn't much info going around the pits but hope everyone heels up fast.

 

Sorry to hear. I didnt get there until Friday night. I have had broken ribs and it just plain ass sucks. I can only recommend using "K Tape" athletic tape. It really works for relieving some pressure on the ribs while healing. Seems silly but it helped.

Another reason I am not a fan of Willow Springs as crashes there just seem to destroy motorcycles (and riders). Hoping for a speedy recovery, it takes about 3 months to really get back to normal. If the rider didnt come find you or your pit crew afterwards to apologize or explain themselves then you likely arent ever going to know and just need to mock it up to a racing incident.

Hope to see you back out there soon.

 

It was not ideal.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to race at Button...I should be able to make LVMS. I will make WSIR at the end of the year.

I’ll have a better idea for recovery after my next surgery.

Regarding helmets - when you fall down you will never think you spent too much on your helmet. A pro of a quality helmet: remaining conscious. A con of a quality helmet: remaining conscious.

Big thanks to everyone who helped load my pit into my trailer.


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Heal up man!

 

Been trying to piece this together and reviewing photographs of the session leading up to the moment of the shunt. There is a bike that runs the #730 and may have been ridden by Stephen Ledesma. Based on the picture sequence and the time stamps he may have had a front row seat for the shunt. Picture sequence indicates he was coming up from behind Jay and Blake and should have been really close at the time of the shunt. Does anybody have a way to contact him and can point him my way. I'd really like to talk with him.

Regards,

 

I went around several bikes in T2 right before I was taken out - no one was behind or coming up on me; I was lapping riders. There were several bikes that were wide near the exit of T2. I’d suggest an email to the rider instead of putting him on blast here.

The pictures don’t show anything leading up to the crash - CP had their lens pointed in another direction at the time of the crash; the last picture taken before the crash was of a Yamaha. The subsequent picture is of myself after I had stopped rag dolling.

You’d have to track down who hit #25 on the left exiting T2 - that person is probably on WERA. Most people register for their races via wera.com so it is unlikely the rider is not on WERA.


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I'd like to email him but I don't have that or a phone number or anything else. I'm not putting anybody on blast and that's not fair. All I'm trying to do is figure out what happened. There was a 3rd bike involved and in fact caused the shunt by hitting the #25 which then made contact with you. If you map the laps previous to the shunt lap, and the positions of the the various bikes as they pass the photographer, the bike with #730 on the side plate was not far behind you and moving up through the field at about the same pace as you were (both 1K bikes, #25 is a 600). Knowing that you and #25 came together and the #730 was behind he might have seen something. Hoping to talk with him. I'm not making any accusations. I don't know who was riding the #730 bike but it competed on Saturday under the name I listed above. So, if someone has his contact or knows who was on the bike on Friday, and would be gracious enough to get a message to him, I would appreciate it.

There's a lot of pain and agony going around due to this incident and it's not restricted to just the riders.

Regards,

 

It wasn’t a shunt. It was a crash.

You can’t map anything by pictures. Almost all of my pictures are just me by myself. All this means is I’m by myself. You need telemetry to map and mine happens to be somewhere in the infield off of T3. I was lapping at 1.25’s testing settings. When I came up on riders I backed off quite a bit. I didn’t get a traffic free lap the entire day. The group that your son was with was on the outside of the second apex of T2. I went around them on the right when I came out of T2 because my rollspeed was so much higher - then I was hit entering T3. I didn’t come together with anyone. I was quite simply put, hit.

I’m not sure why you are claiming pain and agony. I suffered more physical and financial damage than anyone else. For starters, my clavicle and scapula are held together by metal, my left arm is in a sling; I cannot bear any weight with it, my right hand is in a hard cast, and I have to use a breathing machine every hour because I suffered a punctured lung.

Your son can also speak for himself. I know this because I spoke to him after I was released from the hospital.

I don’t know who was riding #730. I only know who has the number registered but that doesn’t mean that the person who has the number was the person riding the bike. If you are going to publicly state that a particular person was the cause of the crash you need to be right. If you aren’t, people will think he caused the crash, which is obviously not good for him.

You could email WERA privately instead of throwing someone’s name out there when you don’t know. Just a friendly tip.

A staff member from 2WTD stated to me, that they were about to black flag a rider because he was riding over his head and dangerously. If that’s true, why wait to black flag someone? Waiting can get people seriously injured and in this case, that’s what happened.

Why not focus your energy on that?


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Jay,
1. I respect your opinion but you are not correct about mapping (reconstructing) the proximity, over time, of the bikes/riders relative to each other as they pass through a given/measured location , using reasonably consistent time stamped documentation (i.e. pics, written reports, eye witness reports, etc.). Part of what I do professionally is forensics based. That withstanding, I (our industry) have scientific logically based methods that are tested, vetted, adjudicated, and that hold up under extreme scrutiny. I'm using some of those methods in my investigation and based on those results I'm attempting gather additional information. Then, if I hit a dead end, the process starts over again. Most times I'm able to get to a definitive answer and can demonstrate with certainty what actually happened. Sometimes I can't.
2. I got the below definition off of Wikipedia but the term "shunt" is used in many types of racing to describe a coming together of the vehicles. We use it in auto racing frequently. The Europeans use the term more than us Americans. A shunt doesn't always result in a crash but most times does. Unfortunately in this case it did. To be clear however, shunts aren't always attributable to someone being at fault. There can be many contributing factors and due diligence should be pursued before publishing an opinion or formal report about a shunt/crash/incident.
Shunt
A crash. Usually side to side contact
3. Like I wrote previously, it is a real shame that you got injured as badly as you did, nobody deserves that.
4. Pain and agony isn't always physical and I'll explain what I mean to you in a one on one conversation but not here in the forum. I've forwarded my cell # to previously so please call anytime.
5. My son can speak for himself and he does that quite well. I gave him your contact info and recommended that he reach out to you and discuss the issue rider tot rider. He took it from there. He is a very accomplished young man and stands quite well on his own two feet, except the standing part right now. He's having a lot of trouble with that and is back at the Orthopedic Surgeon office's today. As to my motivations, I'm interested in what happened because:

• I am part owner in the bikes and sponsor the team.
• The team is run out of my shop using my equipment, and I am heavily involved and invested.
• I have a vested interest in not only our riders well being but all of the riders safety and well being.
• I'm curious if this was a WERA rider that started the shunt or if it was a non-licensed rider that 2WTD allowed into the "Racer" group which never should have been there. Maybe 2WTD was lied to and a rider or riders in the Race Group misrepresented themselves. Several of the bikes in the Race Group did not show up for the WERA races on Saturday and Sunday ( I stayed both days) including the mystery BWM bike/rider who seems to keep coming back into the discussion. A 2WTD official came to our pits after the incident and told us that said rider/bike had been reported to them during the red flag by another rider in the session and I'm paraphrasing "..... that guy is a problem and is riding dangerously...". I'd really like to talk with that rider. Can you identify a BWM in the session? I've looked the pictures over many times and I can't find a BWM but it's hard to tell bike brand from the angles the pics were taken.

6. I haven't, and won't, state who was the cause of the shunt. If fact what I'm doing is trying to talk with riders that may be able to help me with that. From what I can tell the rider of the #730 bike would have been the closest behind and may have seen something. Like you, I don't know who was on the #730 bike Friday, I do know who was registered to ride that bike on Saturday. It's published on the WERA website. Is there somewhere on the website that lists contact info for riders, I can't find it. I'll also contact the WERA office for some help. I've been leaving them alone because this didn't happen on their watch.

7. I've contacted 2WTD several times via email, and voice mail and requested that one of their people, preferably one of the owners, call me back. To date, no one from 2WTD has called or emailed me back. I'm not sure how to interpret that. I guess maybe they're just busy and will get around to it eventually.

I've attempted to address the comments you've made to the post's I've placed here on the forum. I respect and consider your opinions. The suggestions you've made have been very helpful. Based on what I've read you're an extremely accomplished rider/competitor and the #1 plate on you bike supports that. It would appear that you are well known and well liked throughout the group. That withstanding, I hope you share the same concerns that I do regarding what happened on Friday. Years ago, when I raced formula cars in SCCA and USAC, us open wheel drivers had to take care of each other or someone would get injured, maimed, and sometimes killed. I've personally seen all three instances. When an irresponsible driver arrived on the scene, neither the sanctioning body or us drivers would stand for it. I've seen more that one team get escorted to the gate due to dangerous on track behavior and I suspect that a group of motorcycle riders/racers is even more vigilant, after all the bikes are missing two wheels and the roll cage. We typically don't due track days anymore because of the behavior we've witnessed from some of the participants in them but when this one was represented as a "racer group only" we figured we would be out there with like minded riders/racers. It was a test and tune day for us also. No hurry and giving everybody lot's of room. The racing was supposed to start on Saturday.

Regards,
Gerry