Reports of our demise are greatly exaggerated…

I’ll write up my normal race report later, (we got a 7th (1st race) and 5th (2nd race) overall) but this is too intense to wait.

It was a close call today… I nearly got my ticket punched. =D

Sunday Round 3 AHRMA Willow Springs Corsa MotoClassica SRA-West Round Three Race II start. Footage from onboard the Formula 1 Sidecar of #101 of Sean Bakken.

Sean gets hit with a tremendous amount of force by Rick Murray on the LCR from behind forcing Sean into Leon Van Orsdale on the FII snagging Sean’s NACA ducting near the nose on the right hand side of his bodywork on Leon’s exhaust. Rick Murray and Brother Bill shoot up the back of both rigs doing a complete barrel roll landing upside down. Sean’s passenger Roger was ejected after being contacted by Rick’s LCR and Brother Bill (who you see tumbling in the video) was shot forward in front of the tumbling LCR. Sean had the choice of hitting Brother Bill or running into Rick’s LCR and chose to sacrafice his bodywork and nudge Rick’s LCR. Luckily Brother Bill was not sucked under either bike but was instead nudged down the track by overturned LCR.

Injuries were minimal with only a couple minor broken bones for Brother Bill and Roger despite the violence of the crash. Leon Van Orsdale #291, Sean Bakken #101, Rick Murray #75 were not able to re-grid for the restart due to damage sustained to their sidecars during the incident.

All I really remember is looking over to my right and seeing a sidecar upside down about five feet off the ground at near triple digit speeds and thinking to myself that something was very wrong with this picture…

Like a skier sensing an avalanche chasing him I nailed the gas and got out of danger chasing me the best I could. But we did take a pretty good beating before it was all done. Apparently Rick’s chair wheel came down on us upside down which explains why my right hip is twinging pretty good. It got the right rear of my bodywork tearing his wheel arch off missing Cindy by about a 13 inches or so, and his chair wheel grooved a huge NASCAR style burnout down the rear of my bodywork.

But the good news is that despite the violence of the wreck(s) the injuries were minor, most the sidecars were able to restart, and I was able to pull a 5th place finish.

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