For those of you who didn't know my son (Richard) and my son-in-law (Mike) have started an Endurance Racing Team - Ricochet Racing - and their first race was at Mallory last weekend. I travelled up on Friday as I had some parts I needed (for my work repairing and servicing interactive climbing walls) to collect from Leicester. Saturday was a Track Day with all that is associated with it. There were people blatting around on all sorts including a KTM Super Moto - possibly a Duke 3.
The weather was a bit wild and overcast and in the afternoon it hailed horizontally!
Sunday was a much brighter day and the temperature had picked up so it looked set for a good race.
The kids were entered in the 3 hour Junior Race where they go out for no more than 30 minutes each and then change over. They both use their own bikes so Mike was on his Gixxer Thou and Richard was on his ZX10R. I had the important (?) job of changing the transponder from one bike to the other and co-ordinating the pit lane swap over so not much time was lost. Katie (my daughter) was on the pitwall with the timing board and our friend Nigel was fuelling and taking tyre warmers on and off. It was all going quite well until.....
In Mike's second session he low sided at slow speed at the hairpin and had to come back in for me (chief mechanic as well) to change his rear brake lever as it had snapped. He was completely unhurt as he was only doing about 10mph when it all washed out from under him. The bike fairing was also slightly scuffed. Richard had only just come in from his session and he was not allowed out for 20 minutes so he had to wait for another 12 minutes before getting back out to keep the laps up. The winning team is the one with the most laps completed at the end of 3 hours. They were on track at the same time as the riders doing the Masters 6 hour race as well.
Richard was in the groove and going well. This was his first race and he was circulating at a consistent 1.02 pace whereas Mike, more experienced at racing, was doing sub 1 minute laps. I was filming Richard when all of a sudden he didn't appear....
On the way between Edwina's Esses and Shaw's Hairpin a rider had had a massive tank slapper (the bars wildly oscillating from lock to lock) and the rider had been thrown off. The bike had hit the tyre wall and rebounded back on the track taking the next rider out. Richard was far enough behind to slam everything on and stop before the carnage....unfortunately the bloke behind him didn't stop and ploughed into the back of Richard!
The race was red flagged as 5 bikes where now involved and 2 of them were broken in half. Richard was carted off to the Medical Centre on  a stretcher and then taken to the Royal Leicester Infirmary where he was subjected to all sorts of tests and x-rays. Dad (me) followed the ambulance in and finally found the A&E dept where Richard was being seen to. Leicester has the 2nd busiest A&E dept in the UK as they have a very large catchment area.....don't have an accident near Leicester. The Doctors and Nurses are good but the waiting.....goes on......and on......and on.....!
After a barrage of tests and x-rays we discovered that although he was in a lot of pain - his bike had been hit squarely on the right hand exhaust and it now resembles a crushed tin can -  his protective gear had done him proud...he'd only got a Mallet fracture of his left thumb knuckle!
His Shoei XR1000 helmet is testimony to the number of times he hit the ground with his head (4) and his back protector (an expensive one) had left his back bruised but whole. The bike is scrap!
Katie stepped up to th plate and drove Richard back to his home in Scotland (Forres) on Monday via our friends in Derby where they stopped on Sunday night.
Meanwhile I had to get home - 1am Monday morning - and leave for work at 6am after loading my car with all the gear I need to do these climbing walls. I got home last night (Wednesday 1st April), picking Katie up from Bristol Airport ont he way, to the news that Richard has bought a new 'Blade from GT's so he can still go to the 4 day, Track Day Experience in Spain in a weeks time. He's going to make a steel splint for his thumb as the splint the hospital supplied won't fit in his gloves!
Life's always full of surprises isn't it?

For sale - one second hand ZX10-R - slightly abused



That'll be just the one exhaust, subframe and main frame required then. It snapped the lugs off the frame where the subframe bolts on!



I presume the damage to the tank was when Richard was hit up the rear and his body slammed into the tank. Makes your eyes water!



Nuff said!