Sad day for motorsport :(

[norty303]

Not sure if any of you are motorbike racing fans, but a very sad event happened today at the Malaysian MotoGP round at Sepang.
Marco Simoncelli, a very colourful character (nicknamed sideshow Bob for his hair) and exciting rider sadly lost his life in a particularly nasty accident involving 2 other riders (Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards)

He'll be sadly missed, RIP

[LaNeK779]

the footage is appaling... a very sad day indeed. this has turned me inside out since this morning...
not much i can say that does not sound cliche... photos of his father, also present at the racetrack, are tragic too

edwards got away with a dislocated soulder and rossi got away unharmed, but now he has to live with the burden of getting involved in his friend's death.
and the worst part is that both riders could do practically nothing to avoid him...

[norty303]

Ironically, (I think) it may have been his 'never say die' attitude that may have lead to the collision. Most other people would've accepted they'd crashed and simply slid away. Not Marco, he'd saved it on his knee/elbow/hip but it caused him to come back across the racing line after running wide.

Having been the 'owner' of big hair in my past and motorbikes, I do wonder if it may have been a contributory factor in his helmet coming off - although from the impact angle, I'm not sure it would've helped anyway as he appeared to be hit in the neck/shoulder region.

I don't think its sunk in just yet, Craig Jones had me choked up for weeks...

[LaNeK779]

i have to agree norty...

it was his general "push from lap one"attitude that has resulted in many crashes, but in this lowside specifically, if only he would have let it slip into the graveltrap and not hang on to it, he would not have turned back into the racing line, and still be with us now.

and yes the helmet seems to have little to do, he also had severe trauma in the chest area as well. reports say that he was dead even before he reached the medical center, the announced time of death was when they finally stopped cpr

[sbk]

Really sad day indeed.
Although the raceday began quite well with the win of the Moto2 race by my favorite compatriot rider Luthi... but this is really nothing against the tragic accident of Marco :-(

RIP, Sic.

[heroic]

Having been the 'owner' of big hair in my past and motorbikes, I do wonder if it may have been a contributory factor in his helmet coming off

I don't think so- about the only way it's possible to get a properly buckled helmet off is if the force applied is enough to smash the jaw- which is enough to break your neck in any case.

Poor guy. Still- racing is not supposed to be safe. He died doing what he loved and what- by all accounts- he was happiest doing. We could all be so lucky.