Death at MotoGP2: The Dangerous World of Motorcycle Racing
The recent death of Shoya Tomizawa at the San Marino Grand Prix on Sunday brings the spotlight back onto just how dangerous motorcycle racing is. Prolific Champion Valentino Rossi also suffered a broken leg recently after a crash that saw him out of competition for a long time. He has only recently returned to racing.
Before Tomizawa, the last death at MotoGP2 had occurred in 2003 and that of Daijiro Kato, who was killed after he crashed and hit a wall. The numerous tragedies that have befallen this racing format are due to the insane speed and fragility of the bikes. When a bike of any kind crashes, the rider is usually flung from the impact and is severely injured.
Even though officials have tried to increase the safety of the event, it will still be a long time before the sport can become death free. Motorcycle racing is a very fast paced and dangerous sport. The light weight of the bikes coupled with the intense speeds that they are raced at leads to many crashes during racing. Since 1949, when MotoGP had started, there have been 46 deaths with Tomizawa being the latest one.
The first rider to die during racing was Ben Drinkwater in 1949, after that one rider died almost every year from then on. Deaths were pretty constant in the racing format until 1993. In 1993, Japanese rider Noboyuki Wakai died during a race but that was the last recorded death for next ten years until Daijiro Kato was killed in 2003. After that there was again a 7 year gap before last Sunday when Tomizawa died.
The governing body of the sport and the officials at racetracks seem to be doing something right because they have somehow managed to arrest the number of deaths in the sport. The 19-year-old Tomizawa was a rising star in MotoGP2. He was doing 125 mph on his bike when he lost control, fell and hit his head on the ground while at the same time he was hit by the bikes of Alex De Angelis and Scott Redding, who were coming behind him at full speed.
They too were both thrown from their bikes and sustained minor injuries. Even though, both men tried to avoid the fallen Japanese rider, it was of no use as they were moving at too fast a speed to do anything about it. This was a very unfortunate incident that will be playing heavily on the minds of everyone involved in the sport. Numerous riders gave their statements regarding how extremely sad they were feeling.
However, despite all the odds, Motorcycle racing has definitely become a lot safer over the years and it has come a long way from the days when there would be a fatality every year or every other year. Today, a death during a motorcycle race is very uncommon but they still do occur as was seen last Sunday. The speed and aggressive nature of racing very lightweight but extremely fast machines has its consequences. Hopefully, race organizers and the governing body of the sport will increase their safety measures to stop any death from occurring again.
Tags: