NBR: Watched a Ducati go down right in front of me!

[pyrocpu]

I was working corner at my local track as a flagman this past Saturday morning (flag first half, drive the second half). There were two sessions for motorcyclists: expert and the non-experts. In this latter group, I was watching this sole bike on my section of track… a red Ducati sport bike… next thing I know, I’m watching this guy apply his front brake while turning in. I see his clip-ons go full left lock, bike and rider go down on a low-sider. ~ 70mph or so. As soon as the rider skids to a stop, he jumps up and runs off of the line. His bike, you see, was in the middle of the riding line.

I throw the yellow flag.

Everyone’s radioing me all at once to find out the status, to the point where I couldn’t radio back in since everyone’s radioing at me.

Rider says he’s fine, just wants to wait for everyone to clear off before fetching his bike. By this point, the safety marshals want to go full-course red flag. Everyone goes back into the pits.

Ducati guy walks over to the bike, and tries to pick it up—winces while yelling in pain.

I radio for the EMTs to come get the guy. They come, check him out, and puts him in the ambulance.

This was ~10:30AM on Saturday; never saw him for the rest of the day.

Supposedly, he’s conscious and well, but we think he must have broken his shoulder/scapula area…

Guy was no less than in his mid-50s, all geared up.

An hour later, one of his buddies comes out and fetches the bike. Bar ends scraped up, fairing as you can see all messed up, left side mirror snapped, brake levers banged up. It took a little bit of time to start, but it did start. I think the shift lever was bent since the rider couldn’t go much more than 20mph back to the pits…

[Cheshire]

Broken shoulder/scapula SUCKS.
At least it was on the track and not in traffic.