Years ago, I had a conversation with the lead EMT at Thunderhill Raceway Park. I’ve been driving and riding at the Northern California racetrack since it opened. The staff has always embraced safety and is proactive with risk mitigation, car or bike.
During that conversation, I asked a pretty simple question: How many motorcycle crashes does Thunderhill have in a year? The answer? About 900. Nine hundred crashes. At one racetrack. In one year. I knew the number would be high, but I didn’t think it would be that high.
That conversation became the basis for a podcast published in 2017. Nearly a decade later, the subject is even more relevant. After all, nobody pulls through the gates of a racetrack planning to crash. I certainly don’t.
I’m not afraid of crashing, but I don’t want to crash. In fact, I’ve spent my entire career developing habits, processes, and techniques designed to make me faster while mitigating risk. But I also understand it can happen every time I roll onto the racing surface.
