Eglington Injured in Serious Crash

April 30, 2005 - I was looking forward to this round. The bike was due to be tuned but unfortunately Phil Seton had a big crash at the British round at Thruxton so it was back to running the standard engine. For this round my big advantage was to run the new Dunlop 209 tyres, acquired courtesy of Rod Harwin Racing. The idea was to get the best possible drive onto the straight to lose as little time as possible to the tuned bikes. I’d booked in to do the Friday practice session to be able to get the suspension set-up to deal with the tyres.

My goal for the weekend was to get as many points as possible to rise a little higher in the championship. I realistically thought I’d be able to be consistently in the top five.

The plan for the weekend was to sort the bike on Thursday (just needed to change the front sprocket), then pack up and arrive at Brands on Thursday afternoon. As usual, plans don’t always work out so well. My son Shaun had a minor incident, rear-ending a Ferrari, so we spent Thursday straightening his car with a replacement bonnet, panel beating and straightening his chassis etc. No real problems, but this meant we left a little later and arrived at Brands around midnight. With some help from Pat Robinson (Rooster) and drinks from Cherie Christian we got fully set-up by about 2:00. Also, along with all this I had to do a new team shirt for myself so we ended up in our usual last minute rush before a race meeting.


Friday Practice:

There were a few things to be done on Friday morning so I missed the first two practice sessions. No problems really, especially as the first session was on a patchy damp track. The rest of the sessions went well, except for a pattering front wheel, possibly caused by the change to the new Dunlop 209 tyres. For the last practice session I changed the front re-bound dampening and went out with Shaun Gilbert for a ride round. That was the plan anyway.

After a few laps, about 2 seconds a lap slower than the previous sessions, I passed a 1000cc bike and pushed it a bit harder into the corner at the end of the bottom straight – just to make sure the 1000 didn’t get past me on the power. The front slid out without any warning and I went down at around 80-100mph. I was OK but the bike had quite a bit of damage to the left hand side. The main damage was the fairing and screens were destroyed.

Thanks to the marshals for retrieving my clocks and wiring loom, which had been ripped out of the bike. The swing-arm was OK but scratched where the paddock stand bobbin had been worn off. The forks were out of alignment. The tank was dented and had scraped on the tar but it was useable. The seat unit was damaged but did not need to be replaced. Even the edge of the seat cushion had melted. The left handle bar and crash bobbin were snapped off.

My Axo crash helmet had been damaged so needed replacing for the race day with my new Uvex helmet. My new leathers were a bit scuffed but had stood up very well, a good compliment to the quality of the new Hein Gericke Celtic leathers. A very good point was that the MHP exhaust system was not damaged at all.

The bike was covered in mud and grass and needed a good clean. Kailah, Shaun, my son, and I set about fixing the bike on Friday night to be ready for the Saturday’s racing. Most parts were available except a fairing. Dave Stewart, the BEMSEE CEO took Kailah around the paddock to find fairings and fortunately we were donated an old style fairing by Ian of C&H racing, to be modified to fit. We removed the forks to check for straightness and then spent the rest of Friday night fixing all the broken bits and modifying the fairing to fit. We packed up at 1:30 with only a few little things left to finish off on Saturday. Friday had gone so well up to the crash. It was just so relaxed it didn’t seem like we were even at a race meeting. Around mid afternoon I’d got the bike scrutineered ready for Saturday.

Saturday Practice:

Saturday started off early with Shaun helping to take the bike to early scrutineering. We put a Metzeler front tyre on to try out with the Dunlop rear. The idea was to see if we could get rid of the front wheel patter (and the near terminal tank slappers from Friday). The bike really looked good, and nearly like new. The replacement fairing was red so there was a large colour change. I remember going out onto the circuit and doing checks to make sure the fairing was holding up, and that there was not a clash with the front mudguard and new fairing. I wouldn’t have gone very fast but by about lap four I was involved in a crash when another rider crashed in front of me at Paddock corner and I couldn’t avoid hitting him or his bike. I don’t really have much memory of the incident as I was quite injured at the circuit, then taken off to hospital for a week or so.

So, that was the end of the weekend’s racing. No points earned towards the championship dropping me to about 13th place for the next round at Cadwell Park at the end of May, although I’m going to miss that round as well.


General Comments:

It was good to be back at a BEMSEE race, and having missed the previous round it did feel like we had been away a long time. It was great to see Pat and Caz again, as well as all the normal BEMSEE paddock.

My new leathers were bought from Hein Gericke for the BEMSEE 600 series, after the Hein Gericke Reading branch had sponsored the Moores Endurance Racing Team. The quality is great at a very reasonable (sub £400) price range. The leathers stood up to some serious practical testing, on Friday and Saturday. Unfortunately they were completely destroyed when the hospital cut them off me, although more importantly my skin was intact.

A special thanks needs to go to Uvex for supplying me with a helmet. It was destroyed in the crash but also saved me from any more serious injuries, so it turned out to be a top helmet.

A special thanks to all those people that helped out after my crash. Kailah and Shaun were right there at the crash site and came with to the hospital. Shaun packed up the bike, van and caravan and brought it all home on the Sunday. He also came back to the hospital and brought us back home on the Thursday. Also thanks to those at Brands that helped Shaun to sort out all my mess. Thanks to those that visited me in hospital, and apologies for not recognising or remembering some on the Saturday to Monday - Danny (and well done on another trophy), Nick, Lindsey, Fraser, Lionel, Cherrie, Karen and Jorge. Also thanks to all those that sent me GWS cards, all very appreciated.

I’m really looking forward to my next race, which should be at the French circuit in Croix. I’ll be missing the next bemsee rounds at Cadwell Park at the end of May, as well as one endurance race at Brands. For the next race my bike will be tuned slightly by Phil Seton so I’m hoping to be more competitive than before.


Saturday Crash Notes - please don’t read if you are squeamish:

The following section is based on what I’ve been told as I have no memory of the events. It appears that my crash in the Saturday practice session happened when a rider in front of me went down at Paddock bend and I could not avoid him or his bike. It seems that I went over the bars and landed on the curbing on my head and left hand side, followed by some bouncing through the gravel trap. I was unconscious initially and supposedly came round when the medics were attending me. I was in obvious pain (so I’m told) as was taken to the medical centre to stabilise a collapsed lung before being taken to the hospital in Sidcup. On arrival there was a trauma team waiting that put me straight into intensive care for a few days. My earliest memories are very blurred, one or two from Sunday then a few on Monday. The injuries were 5 broken ribs (one in two places), both collarbones, severe concussion, a punctured lung, severe bruising to body, limbs and genitals and a broken right ankle. Supposedly the critical injuries related to the collapsed lung and air under my skin causing my airway to be at serious risk. The hospital provided top class medical treatment and nursing staff. I had a nurse permanently at my bedside for three days, along with doctors visiting every few minutes. I was discharged on Thursday and my son Shaun collected me and Kailah to take us home. On Friday my local doctor had me spend the day in the local hospital getting new x-ray’s and being checked out to make sure everything was ok.

It seems that I’m lucky not to remember all the problems and pain in the first few days. I was feeling a lot better by the time I was discharged on the Thursday. There will still be a few weeks / months to fully recover but all looks good so far. The pain has not been as bad as expected but I did feel quite unwell from all the medication I was on. This has been my most serious crash in my racing history but I’m really lucky that I came out so well.

We saw a video of the crash. As expected, it wasn’t really that bad but more unlucky. My initial impact was shoulder and head into the curbing from a ‘highside’ after having my front wheel was knocked out. I think I was just unlucky to be in the wrong place at the time, and unlucky to highside straight into the curb. A few inches either way and the crash probably wouldn’t have happened.

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