Your worst crash ever

[Falcon991]

YZ addict's post got me thinking about this subject: what was the worst crash you ever had? I'll start
I think my first post on RonRon was about my worst crash. Forgive me if I repeat myself, but that was 7 years ago so I suppose most of you haven't read about it.

I was coming back from a ride with my buddy late in the day. We were roosting each other in the rain puddles that had collected all over the trail while going through riverbeds, fairgrounds and fire roads. Then, I looked up and saw an enormous puddle, almost a pond, dead ahead. It had a small patch of dry dirt next to it, just adjacent to a horse corral.
I was farther from the corral and ahead of my buddy. I thought, "I'll just get there first, and then he can't push me into the water!"
Well, I am sure my buddy thought, "I'll just get there first and push him into the water!"
I made a move toward the apex of the right hand turn, when BAM! My buddy came up underneath me and slammed into my bike. His handlebar or fist hit me in the elbow and my bars turned away from him, hard left. My bike went out from under me to the left and I fell on the end his fender and slipped off, onto his spinning rear wheel. The wheel picked me up and stuffed me into the subframe, trying to squeeze me into the space between the shock and the rear wheel.
I was trying to get out, trying to make it stop. My friend didn't know why his bike was bogging and kept downshifting, while his Dunlop went through my jersey and into bare skin. I had to pound on his leg to get him to stop!
When it all was over, I had a gnarly laceration that ran from my tricep past my armpit. I lost a few layers of skin and I ended up getting dragged though that puddle anyway, so the wound got infected. I was laid up for weeks with the most painful, aching sore you can imagine. I still have the scar, and this was 23 years ago. Ouch!

[Squeaky192]

I've had so many get off's it's hard to decide.

It's between the time I was at Cooperland at a Loretta's qualifier and got a terrible start, worked my way from 17th to 10th in the first half a lap then washed the front end like a newb. Got up, started charging hard again and was coming through the back.

If you've ever been to Cooperland they have a super fun "scrub" tabletop section that is dug down about 10 feet or more so it leaves a bank. I came out of the corner hauling, scrubbed the first little tabletop really well and came up on the Honda ahead of me with way more speed coming into the next jump. He looked over his shoulder and cut me off coming to the face, so I avoided him halfway up the jump face towards the bank, missed a tree by about a foot (according to the flagger), landed with my engine guard on the bank and went flipping onto the track. I knocked myself out and when I opened my eyes there were bikes landing on the landing and avoiding me, I never ran off a track so fast. I ended up being fine and actually rode the next day.

The other one was last year, my second pro race. There were only three of us and the track was already dry by first motos so I just rode conservative on the 450 and got 3rd the first moto then won the first 250f moto. Second 450 moto it was like marbles on concrete. I got a decent start but slipped back into 3rd between the rock-like roost and so much dust I couldn't see where I was. I just started to take it easy and came through a whoop section that was followed by a fast right hand sweeper. I skimmed the whoops in 3rd tapped out, came into the corner and clicked 4th and my ass end started to slide, caught once, went the other way, and just threw me off the high side. I literally landed about 20 feet away from my bike on dry concrete, knocked the wind out of myself and tore my acl. My knee felt good though 10 minutes later and I tried my 2nd 250f moto but caught my knee and couldn't do it. Didn't know my acl was torn and finally found out and got surgery this June.

[757]

I would have to say its between a couple different times as well.

Option One. We were riding at aztec raceway in Colorado Springs and just having a good time. the track I was riding has a step up thats usually 3rd gear about mid throttle, and usually had a little chicane about 40 feet before it. This day, for some reason they had routed the track around the chicane, so you had a 180 degree right, a step down (maybe 45 feetish?) and then about a 100 yard run into this step. Obviously youre not gonna cruise in 3rd gear all the way down this long dong straight, so I was hauling ass into it about 4th gear tapped, and then at the base of the jump backing off to not land in the next county over. There was startng to get some little washboards in the track just before the jump, and one time they gave me a ton of headshake. I lost the bars and went slamming into the face of the jump, pretty much shoulder first. I somehow didnt get hurt on that one, but bent the bars so bad the bike could lay on its side and the bars wouldnt touch the ground.

The 2nd time was actually the 1st time I rode my 06 YZ125. I had just bought the bike to race the local supercross series on, and hadnt even gotten a chance to ride it (hell I had to break in the top end in my garage) there was a step on step off jump that had a really abrupt face that wanted to kick the rear of the bike up. I hit it for the 1st time in practice and sure enough it punted me up and over the bars. I basically did the whole scorpion deal and bent backwards, and then the bike came over and tagged me. End result, jammed up shoulder, Cracked helmet, and I think it broke my fender too.

[sharkmx62]

My worst was a couple of years ago. For the first time ever I was doing a little local series. I had done decently going 2 7 2 7 at four of the six rounds. So its the fifth round and one of the tracks I had already raced had a new section in it. Its a pretty decent sized double that I struggled with all day. During the race I get a great start and im running in second behind the series leader. Ive raced him before and know that if I can apply pressure the last lap he is completely worn out. By the 3rd lap its just him and me completely leaving everyone else. Not sure what happened but I came up short on the double, rode a nose wheelie to the next jump, and went head first into it. I got up finished the race, not sure where I finished. Ride back to the truck and was pitted with a guy that I was a friendly rival with. Start talking with him and it becomes clear that im not all there. Strangest concussion ive ever had. I can still remember most deatils from that night, but at the time my memory was shot. My grandparents lived down the street from the track so they came to pick me up, could not for the life of me figure out who my grandma was. Forgot my brother had got married, forgot some intimate details about my girlfriend and I, and apparently made about a 1000 phone calls to my family and friends about picking me up. The next day I was running a prettygood fever and my back hurt real bad. Went to the doc and I had compressed my L2 and my L3. The next few weeks my back got more and more purple and super swollen. It ended up not being very serious but scared me pretty bad

[Patrick]

I crashed my YZ80 really hard at the 2001 Mini National at LACR. It was pretty windy that day. Got the holeshot, went around a bunch of turns and came up to the first jump, probably about a 50 ft. tabletop. There was a kicker on it and I hit it pretty hard. My YZ80 went completely sideways and stayed that way until I flat-landed it. I was whipped into the ground and hit my head really hard. I got knocked out and then, from what I understand, I was run over by a couple of the kids behind me.

When I came to, I had the wind knocked out of my sails and couldn't breathe. I was on my hands and knees. The bike was trashed. Bent subframe, ripped up seat, bent silencer, wrecked plastic, and so on. After the medic checked me out and asked me what day and year it was, I got up, my dad put me on my bike, and pushed me back to the pits. Oh and Jeff Alessi walked up to me and asked me if I was okay. Nice kid.

No broken bones, but it scared the hell out of me and made me think about calling it quits. I think I was probably 12.

[DBerg649]

I've been pretty lucky overall, but my worst one was probably my last one, and I didn't even break any bones.
I was at one of those practice tracks that have some nice jumps, a lot of potential, but just never got taken care of. There was one double that wasn't that big, maybe 55-65 feet, but the landing was really peeked out and the jump face had a bunch of washouts in it from a series of storms we had probably 6 weeks before and there was actually only one good line to hit the jump from on the far right. If you're gonna wreck on a jump, that was not the one to do it on, haha. Anyways, I hit the table before it and got blinded by the setting sun, so I kinda hesitated a little, but went for it anyways. I couldn't see the face too well, and ended up missing the line and my back tire slid off into one of the washed out ruts. I ended up landing completely sideways and on top of that I came up a bit short, swapped out a bit and finally highsided. My bars were bent down on the right, and my fender and front wheel was tweaked over to the left real bad, so I guess my bike popped up and landed upside down. I hit face first into the ground, and my right leg got caught in the handlebars for a second before I twisted and tumbled down the track. My bike was maybe 5 feet from the landing, and I'm not sure how far I ended up from my bike but I remember being really suprised by how far away I was when I stopped rolling. I ended up with some pulled ligamants and tendons in my right hip (either popped my hip out for a bit or over extended my leg backwards) and then some pretty bad muscle damage in my back and neck that I'm still haven't completely gotten over yet. The combination of hip and back injuries really sucks though because it seems like for one to feel better, I had to put too much strain on the other. Luckily the worst of it was over after about 4 days, but that wreck felt like I was in a small wooden box and something just shook the **** out of it real hard while I was in it, haha.

[Triple Five]

I tipped over in a corner one tyme.

[Fearo]

Clicky Clicky
(http://nl.netlog.com/fearo97/photo/photoid=32972723&surr=0#photos)

[sharkmx62]

I tipped over in a corner one tyme.
Damn, did everything turn out ok?

Oh, and your old joke about sex with a preggers chick is also getting head, for sure worked as a pick up line for me last night. i thank you kind sir.

[copsey]

4th gear, clipped tree, bike kept going and I stayed put.

[Triple Five]

Damn, did everything turn out ok?

Oh, and your old joke about sex with a preggers chick is also getting head, for sure worked as a pick up line for me last night. i thank you kind sir.

AHAH! That's hilarious.





I've seriously had to many gnarly crashes I can't remember my worst. I was at the local dirt stock car track the other night when my Dad had remind me of getting knocked out there on a 60 flat tracking. 5th gear tapped I hit a hay bail. KO'd

Got pitched off a ~95' jump on 80's. When I landed I just highsided hard. Concussion :thumbsdown:


I was at a saturday practice before the race at the same track the next day. The track was packed and not divided by skill levels. I was just trying to burn fast laps and got bunched up behind two C riders and another local pro coming up to a big step-up. I thought everyone was jumping so I thought I had a clear line on the outside. The A rider backed off pretty late and kinda moved off his line. I was just keeping it pinned before the face and didn't really have any time to back off. I got KO'd and stopped breathing for a while. Woke up in the Ambulance. :confused:


Got kicked forward off the face of the previously mentioned ~95' jump. Endoed and ended up breaking my two front teeth.

[Falcon991]

Ah, man. I had a good crash when somebody backed out of a double right in front of me too... World Mini, 1999. 125 Intermediate class. There is a sweeping right-hand corner adjacent to the starting line that straightens out into a long double. The fast line is to the left (you really had to get ON it on a 125, so you drifted wide.)
The guy in front of me chickened out and I had nowhere to go except to turn to the right. My new line took me across the jump, and that was a little too far to clear on a 125. I came up short and sideways, hit my head on the bars, and all I remember from there is the sound of my panic rev, fading out into blackness. KO'd. Wow, that's wierd.

Believe it or not, the one where my buddy ran me over was worse. :uhoh:

[F4CTRY]

I think my worst was actually in 2 parts

Racing the NZ SX champs 2 years ago, i got an average start and as i stepped over this jump there was like a 45-50ft triple. I jumped the step over and the guy next to me did as well and then jumped across the triple on the angle. I tried to change where i was heading on the upramp and managed to a little bit and scrubbed straight into the backside of the landing of the triple. That wasnt so baad, I mean it hurt but I wasnt letting me that stop my SX natioanls, I was determined to go top10 that year or die trying.

So I got going and thought the bike was handling funny but just rode it, and the next lap, I over jumped the step over, which usually wasnt a big deal as if I gassed it there was still plenty of time to triple, but what I didnt know at the time was on my kawi, that the exhaust had bent upwards on the header and snapped the bottom of the valve off the shock. So there was no gas and I was riding on a spring. So when I overjumped the step over and gasses for the upramp, it preloeded like you have never seen and shot me sky high, but it didnt give me the length needed. I cased the triple right below the pegs and as I stood up to enter the corner right after it, I feel straight off the bike. I couldnt put any weight on my ankles. A trip to hospital found no breakages but the ligaments and muscles were screwed. To this day nealy 2 years later, they still are, and I notice it every day. Also had a concussion.

I hope to be back this year for SX, I havent raced competitively since....our mx nats sttart soon but I got a sweet TV gig hosting them. Yes im super pumped about the deal

[ryan_625]

Im not sure if it is my worst or not but it is up there. I was riding with a couple friends at a track I had build on a buddies property, they were fairly new to riding so most of the jumps were pretty small and boring so i pulled the tractor out and smoothed up a new line on the far left of a set of table tops. there were two in a row, about 25 ft each with a good 50-60 ft gap in between. The plan was to jump them both. Hit it 4th tapped on my 250f and made it easy. So me and my friend that rides pro hit a few times and then started doing more motos, well the third guy never sacked up and hit it, but we thought he had. I was behind him during a moto and he didnt hit it a few laps then we came around and he was pinned! he had the speed and at the last second locked up the brakes, i was on his ass and had no where to go so i turned right off the face and landed in soft dirt on the side of the landing. next thing i know i am in the worst pain i have ever felt in my dads truck on the way to the hospital. I blacked out about 3 times in a 10 minute drive from pain. I shattered my eye socket and cheek bone. :thumbsdown:

[Flesh206]

Some of these stories sound a little beefed up.....and the line that almost everyone is using is "I was fine", or "fine the next day" is extremely lucky or bs.


With that said I had a chain let go before a double about 40ft or so in the first week of summer break back when I was going into my junior yr of high school (2001) . So, as soon as the chain broke it locked up the rear wheel and sent the bike nose diving and i bailed with my feet to the sky and my head at the ground so i stretched my head back so I could see where I was bound for impact. When the time was right i tried rotate as much as i could so i wouldnt land square on my head this helped but not enough to seriously injury my spinal cord in which im extremely lucky...anyways the ground pushed my helmet through my collarbone causing it to snap in half it sucked a$$.

[trentmanracing]

I would have to say when i broke my back this past summer (well May 2009). It was at Dayton Motorcycle Club on May 31st 2009. Don't really remember much of the crash (got knocked out). The outcome a broken back (t8 and t11), a collapsed lung, staph infection (from the hospital). Stayed in the hospital for 5 days (they were running out of space in trauma and started kicking out patients). 2 months in a brace. Now that the brace is off my back is not the same (well I thought it would be better than it is). I cannot sit for more than 15 min. I am having some major problems with my back and my parents are in denial about it. But that was my worst crash ever.

Brittany

[sharkmx62]

dang that is some gnarly stuff