The Easter 2000 trip was one none of us will forget, unfortunately for the wrong reason: Adam had a bad crash on his GSXR-600 which resulted in being helicoptered out to the ITU at the military hospital in Koblenz. However, despite a worrying period, he is now well on the way to recovery. [He has since made a full recovery. :-)]
We drove over on the Thursday. A plan to have one big convoy of vehicles was thrown out when Ian was adamant about doing one route and Martin adamant about doing another, so we split up. Sam & I opted to keep Martin & Karen company on the Brussels route, which got us to the Ring early enough to get in a few laps before meeting up with the rest for beer and nosh at the Lindenhof:
Me in characteristic pose in the Lindenhof
Claire Seabert pleased with the arrival of her meal
Moral: Don't leave your digital camera out on the table
Or allow your Jarreskart to be photographed if it looks like this!
:-)
(Martin Plant's card)
Luca, an Italian friend of Rich Brown's who joined us on the trip
Mand dealing with the papparazi
Renate & Magid, who own & run the Lindenhof
Rich Seabert brought the family with him (left to right: Sam,
Rich, Justine ...)
... Susan ...
... and Rich Browning teaching Claire Seabert some table manners
The weather was excellent, and again a reasonably early start resulted in a pretty empty track for an hour or so:
Amanda, on the bike I later bought from her (photo taken from
Dutch Tony's Scooby)
Tony at the wheel of said Scooby
Although things got busier as each day went on, it was rarely really manic:
Luca and Ian Archbold discuss their previous lap
Justine Seabert has a go at driving my MX-5
As does her brother Sam
We decided to try to get some footage of the whole group of us, so I mounted the camcorder on the back of the MX-5 so that everyone could follow behind:
The first bends at Schikane revealed that the camcorder was subject to a lot more sideways forces on the rear of the car, so we naughtily pulled off the track in the large tarmac area above the Grand Prix circuit to add much gaffa-tape. This did the trick, and I got some good footage as people rotated their positions behind me (frame-grabs to follow).
Re-aligning it once it was restored to it usual front-mounted
position
When it started to rain after Samantha & I had gone for a
coffee, a helpful convoy member improvised some rain protection
Ian has a chat with an Esprit driver (whose name escapes me)
Partially visible on the left is the last ever photo taken of
Adam's bike while it was in one piece ...
Mand chats to Karim behind his souped-up Elise
A BMW C1
Martin also brought along a digital camcorder, which he mounted on a tripod in the back of his recently-acquired M3 (nice try with the number-plate - should have bought an M-reg):
Martin giving Adam a lap in his M3
Martin asked me if I'd like some external footage of me driving the MX-5, so we did one lap with me following him (a plan which worked except on the bits where he forgot the rather large power difference between the two vehicles!) and then set off to do a lap with him following me. As we were coming up Kesselchen, we spotted the ambulance ahead with blues-and-twos. Given the speed at which it was struggling up the hill, it seemed silly to sit behind it, so we overtook but obviously kept our speed down now that we knew there was an accident ahead.
It was on the final bend of Wippermann that we saw a marshall waving a flag. I raised my arm and put the hazards on, then rounded the bend very slowly to see several vehicles parked up at the trackside, a safety car and a bunch of people around someone on the ground. Since there were already so many people on-scene, and I knew the ambulance was on the way, I decided not to add to the chaos by stopping. Which was when I spotted a yellow bike, followed by a prone rider in leathers with lots of yellow on them: it was Adam.
I pulled onto the grass and grabbed the first-aid kit from the boot. Ian, Rich and Phil were already with him. Adam was on his side, semi-conscious and thrashing about a bit, trying to sit up and remove his helmet. He obviously had some pain in his arm. We managed to keep him fairly still and give his back support. There was blood inside his helmet and I saw the breath-guard inside was smashed so pulled this out. There wasn't much more we could do other than reassure him, not knowing whether he could hear us. It felt like a very long wait for the ambulance.
Once the ambulance arrived, the paramedics got some shears out and were about to cut the sleeve of his leathers. Aware that there were fairly recently-bought Crowtrees, and imagining that they were just going to cut a slot to get his injured arm out, I asked them if it was necessary. "Oh yes." I felt a bit silly afterwards for having asked it: they literally cut his leathers to pieces.
Although Adam was moving his upper-body, there was no movement in his legs and he didn't respond to us asking him to move his feet. It didn't look good. Fortunately it wasn't long before a helicopter arrived with doctors on board.
They were concerned that he was going to worsen his injuries by trying to move, so gave him a general anaesthetic. I asked them to write down the name and address of the hospital they were taking him to, and Karim did the job none of us wanted to do: telling Amanda.
I'll skip the horrible waiting stage: suffice it to say that Adam's going to be back at the Ring in August, albeit as a passenger because his neurologist says that he can't drive for at least six months in case he has a fit at the wheel. [He did a pillion ride then, and is now back riding there.]
Adam's crash had quite an impact on me. Despite the fact that we've all sat through track closures, seen the ambulance go out numerous times and seen the helicopter ambulance attend, none of us really thought much about what it meant - just went for a coffee or lunch and waited for the track to re-open. I think I'd managed to convince myself that most of the crashes happened to people who were pushing too hard and that we were relatively safe because we were sensible. Adam's crash shattered that illusion: he's both a good rider and a careful one. And both directly and indirectly, it brought home the impact an accident has on friends and family (Sam, who was there with me, initially thought it was me as I didn't come back following the closure, the first-aid possibility not oncurring to her because I'd told her that I don't stop for accidents unless it appears to be life-and-death).
But then I had a little adventure of my own in the form of a pulmonary embolism, and that put things into perspective in terms of the relative risks - the mortality rates from those are rather higher than those of the Ring, even after treatment ...
Copyright © Ben Lovejoy 2000