Oh Crap I'm Crashing... WHEEEEE!!!
Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 11:28 am
A few years back I was chatting with my Ex-Stepdad who races single-seaters. In fact he's a former Formula Vee UK Championship winner.
We got onto the subject of crashing, and his biggest off in particular.
He was racing at Cadwell Park in SuperVee (bascially Formula Vee with slicks and wings - now long dead in the UK), and came a cropper big-time at a fast corner. This lead to him flipping the car end-over-end quite a few times and resulted in a very painful broken scapula (shoulder blade), but miraculously no other real injuries.
We were talking about what you actually experience whilst having a big crash. He vividly remembered the sounds of crumpling metal as the car smashed into the ground, and the contrasting total silence as it was in the air.
Even more was the feeling as the car spun through the air.
Then he surprised me.
He told me that he found himself quite enjoying it! He liked the feeling as he spun through the air, watching the sky and ground flying past, but then said it was scary each time the back went over because the weight of the engine made it all rotate violently faster.
I thought he was an absolute -ing nutter! But then I had a think about some of my own crashes...
Probably my biggest was a highside on the road that launched me right up in the air, and I remember that aside from being a bit worried about hitting the ground and tring to make sure I didn't damage my helmet or snap my back, I was quite enjoying it! Well, Until I saw the looks on the faces of the two Officers in the Police car coming towards me, anyway...
It's a similar story with some of the close calls I've had.
It's a rush.
It's exhilerating.
Dammit if I don't ENJOY crashing!
Not the actual pain and smashing into stuff - I'm not quite that mental yet - but the whole experience is so EXTREME you just have to find a bit of enjoyment in it all!
I saw an interview on the TV show 'Top Gear' a while back with F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, where he expressed the same views. I wonder if it's a common thing for racers and bikers? I wonder if many people like me don't even realise it?
Here's the Lewis Hamilton interview: