16th August 2003 - Cadwell Park

The sun was out again come race day so I went out for our ten minute practice determined to make a few more points on Gary Morris in the championship. Realistically I had no way of catching Gary Nicholas in the series but a number of people had dropped out so there were still a couple of championship places up for grabs before the end of the year. I had also been able to stick with Gary Nicholas and Bryan Bunn the last time we were here so was feeling faintly optimistic.

Practice went well but we were scheduled for race eleven so we had a long time to wait before we would get out on track again. We spent a lot of the day sitting around in the sun although spirits were rather subdued as there had been a big accident in the 250GP race which held everything up for several hours whilst the track was cleared up.

Race 1 - Mini Twins

I got an average start on the warm up lap but lost a bit of time being on the inside in to the first corner. I was determined to get a better start for the race and I timed it perfectly as the lights changed and shot off ahead of the rest of my row. I was right on Phil Turtle's rear wheel as we ploughed up the grid with Matt Flynn slightly ahead of Phil. Whilst I knew these two guys were effectively blocking my view ahead I wasn't too concerned as the track would be clear and I'd be able to take Phil on the way out of the first corner. Well, I would have done had I made it to the first corner!

The first indication that something wasn't right was when matt dived off to one side and Phil to the other. I suddenly found myself bearing down on an Aprilia Mille that had stalled on the second row of the grid. having started on the seventh row I had gathered quite a bit of momentum by this point and there wasn't a great deal I could do. I threw the bike to the right as hard as I could although I was very aware that the other three guys from my row on the grid were also bearing down on that very space and I didn't want to take any of them out. With hindsight I should have just trusted to luck as although I managed to avoid the rear wheel of the Aprilia by mere inches I hadn't quite got over enough to avoid it with my knee.

My knee caught the end of the Aprilia's exhaust can instantly folding it in half and reducing it to a pile of scrap. I was thrown from the bike by the impact and slid down the track being narrowly avoided by the guys I was racing with. A few took had to take avoiding which I am grateful for and nobody collected me along the way. The start line marshal was the first to me and asked if I could stand up. At that point I didn't know but the minute I tried I simply found that my left leg wasn't working and that I wasn't going anywhere. My bike had slid well over a hundred yards up the straight and it proved to be a mad rush to get me and the bike out of the way by the time the other riders came round for their next lap.

Eventually they helped me up and moved me to the pit lane where I sat down and waited for the race to finish before they could take me to the Medical Centre. I didn't get to see my bike but I did get a good view of the guy I had hit, or rather, a view of his very battered exhaust. I had even managed to bend his steel exhaust hanger in two with the impact. I think someone was smiling down on me though as I later found out the exhaust had first hit my R&G Racing crash bobbin putting a rather nice dent in it. When that had absorbed as much as it could take the exhaust had then moved on to my knee slider which was ripped to pieces. By the time the exhaust found my leg it had lost some of it's energy but it was enough to do some fairly serious damaged.

Unfortunately the guy I had run in to hadn't got away completely unscathed as my gear lever (I think) had caught him on the back of his lower leg before bending round and cutting in to his leg. We had both been very lucky although it could just as easily be seen as very unlucky but anything you can walk away from, or hobble away from, has to count as a good thing in this game particularly when there had already been some serious incidents earlier in the day.

After sitting in the medical centre for a while Gary Morris came to make sure I was okay before heading off to get my clothes, phone and wallet from my van so I could be taken to hospital in the knowledge that I could, at least, get home again at some point. Unfortunately the ambulance guys had other ideas and whisked me off to Louth Hospital before Gary could get back. So I ended up in hospital with no money, no phone numbers to contact anyone and no clothes as my leathers were still in the medical centre.

By this time I had a very swollen foot as it had been trapped between my foot peg and the foot peg off the bike I hit. My knee wasn't doing too badly though and the initial x-rays looked fairly clear. Maybe I had got away with this one! Or not! It turned out on closer inspection that there was a bit of stray bone showing up in a position that it shouldn't be in. Turns out that the impact had torn my Posterior Cruciate Ligament and detached a lump of bone in the process from the top of my lower leg. Ouch! There wasn't much they could do there and then so they suggested I go home and see a surgeon locally as it would need operating on.

Great, all I needed now was a lift back from hospital. My an extremely convoluted route, phoning home to get my lodger to look up some phone numbers on my computer, I got hold of a couple of guys at the circuit and while Gary Morris came to get me Simon 'Sol' Oliver curtailed his weekend and agreed to take me back to his house in Cambridge for the night. I duly left hospital with one leg in plaster, hobbling around on crutches and wearing a hospital gown. Mmmm, nice!