My memory is still a little hazy but I'll do my best....
The fourth and final run of the day. My first was lost, scared and slow. Second, much better but with a huge false neutral in the middle that buggered it up. Third was fast, confident, and entirely awesome. I've had a good day, put down one acceptable time and we have a cool night ahead of us. It suddenly gets to the point where I can't see why I'm still hanging out at the bottom of the run. We're running low on people queueing to go up so I kit up, and join the two bikes waiting.
At the start, much calmer now. Pete-the-starter lets me know I have ten seconds so I drop my visor, put it in first and breathe. Look up the road. 5,4,3,2,1 and with a gentle shove on the shoulder I let the clutch out, put my feet up and and thankfully find it in me to open it up in first and just deal with the consequences. Within about two bike lengths we're there, I'm in the place. Nothing else even exists.
Click up, click up, head down, arse back, click up, click up ... wait ... click up. The first corner is a hugely fast right but already over 200k it looks like a hairpin. I button off slightly, raise my head to see where I'm going and manage to get the dish shaped part on the inside of the corner. I hit it with the throttle wide open and not nearly enough speed. Never mind, go left for the next ... a fast right hander leading into a substantially slower left, I come up, drop a gear, don't feel so bad about slowing into the next corner .... through the dip, round the shadowed left with the horrible surface, climb out and into the open ... throttle wide open, let it build speed, click up, watch for...
Cliffhanger! Hard on the brakes, far too deep, far too wide, no elegance at all I go down one gear too far and emerge just above 70k, in second and practically bolt upright. My mother could do better. Pile the power on, click up, hold, click up ... the wind starts battering my helmet, the front end goes light, rocks to my right and nothing to my left we're launching up this road towards the sky. Another gear and there's no let up. I see some trees approaching. Click up. The cerebral brain wins, knowing from experience that it's actually fine. Up again and we're in top, still accelerating hard towards a darkened rise - I still can't remember this corner other than it isn't a nasty one and come off the power to go round....
Through some twisties, the tyres behave perfectly, the suspension compresses evenly, the throttle remains responsive and I can flick the bike from side to side under me. No surprises, everything is smooth, fast, and exactly how I tell it to be. I see a right hander I remember as being fast and hoof into it, cranked over and find myself back on full power more or less at the apex. After this is another right, and we're into the the fast section before the finish so I need to drift out wide to set it up. Oh, perhaps a bit too wide? Nah, she's good. No we're not. It's OK, plenty of space, I'll bring it gently back towards the middle a bit. I hear the front tyre touch gravel.
I'm on the ground. The bike is ahead of me, sideways, flying down the road in a torrent of gravel and grass.
For a tiny fraction of a second I see stones passing in front of my eyes.
At this speed it's going to take me an age to decellerate.
It's over.
I'm alive. I'm not in pain. Nothing's broken. I'm on my back, in long grass, down a ditch. My fingers still work so I flip open my visor and spend some time yelling for help. I get embarrassed. I get over it, and yell for help some more. Afterwards, no noise. It's OK. A beautiful, peaceful saturday afternoon in New Zealand. Nothing. The marshals will have seen me go down and will be waving their red flags furiously. Help is coming, danger is past. I sit up and remove my helmet and gloves. My left hand has obviously taken a big whack and hurts. I sit halfway up but can go no further. I'm really really sweaty. A bike goes past.
WHAT THE FUCK? Oh, shit, now we're in trouble. They've not seen me. They have no idea. Other riders are going to come blasting round the corner and hit my wreck. Shit, must warn. I shout some more. Wave, pathetically, it's all I can do. I'm not sure if my arm even extends out of the ditch. I hear another bike and do what little I can ... BWWAAAHHHdummmm, he sees what's happened and stops. Some commotion. I see a yellow gixxer heading back down the slope, finger on horn. Finally a marshall arrives, another rider arrives (the guy who binned in the morning, ironically) and I find myself explaining that I'll be fine and they should just chuck me in the trailer with the bike when the ute comes to pick it up. "We'll get the ambulance" says Tasman.
It arrives. Bent over I manage to struggle in and out of the corner of my eye spot my bike - a twisted tangle of metal where once there was an exhaust system - and someone collecting bits of plastic and metal off the road. We head back down the slope. The journey down takes very substantially longer than the one up.
[more coming]
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least you didnt suffer to much injuries,which by the sounds of it ,was pretty lucky.
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Originally Posted by RantyDave
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