“The thing that makes this sport so exciting is the same thing that makes it suck,” tweeted Valentino Rossi’s Aussie mechanic Alex Briggs when reflecting on the tragic death of Moto2 rider Shoya Tomizawa following a horrific accident during last night’s San Marino Grand Prix.
That sentiment was shared by motorbike racing fans around the world at a time when the sport deals with its second fatality in as many weeks.
Last week 13-year-old (yes, 13!) American Peter Lenz was killed in a fall in a support race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway MotoGP round.
Last night 19-year-old Tomizawa was battling for a place on the Moto2 podium when he fell on the high-speed turn 11.
Alex de Angelis and Scott Redding, following behind, couldn’t avoid hitting the hapless Tomizawa, causing severe injuries to his skull, chest and abdomen that he would later succumb to.
The sight of Tomizawa’s body being struck so violently and tumbling down the track like a rag doll is an image that will remain implanted on our minds for some time.
His death was the first in a grand prix class since compatriot Daijiro Kato, who died in the 2003 Japanese MotoGP.
Kato was another Japanese starlet who was earmarked for great things before his untimely death, and tragically Tomizawa’s loss is the third high profile loss for the Japanese racing community following former grand prix winner’s Norrick Abe fatal road accident in 2007.
Tomizawa will go down in history as the first ever Moto2 race winner, the category that replaced the 250cc grand prix class as the feeder series to MotoGP and has been lauded by fans for its competitiveness. He was one of its shinning lights, bursting onto to the scene this season as a relative unknown, shocking the grand prix community when he won the season opener – eager, like the rest of them, to make his name and progress to the premier class.
Eerily the crash occurred on the same track on the same date as the 1993 accident that left tripe world champion Wayne Rainey paralysed.
But what the crash highlights is despite the huge advances in track safety, medical facilities and rider equipment, motorbike racing remains perilously dangerous.
When a rider is flung from the bike and hit at those speeds, there is no way the human body, protected only by the powerless leathers, can survive that sort of trauma.
Both Tomizawa and Lenz were killed when struck by other bikes, while a similar fate befell Englishman Craig Jones in a 2008 World Supersport race.
There’s nothing the sport can do to protect riders from those types of accidents.
The sport will race on, tributes written and Tomizawa immortalised in racing folklore as one of the fallen.
The riders know the risks they take and will ride on.
As MotoGP rider Ben Spies said following Lenz’s accident: “The fact is, it’s going to happen again at some point to somebody and we hate it, but we know what’s going on when we put a helmet on; we know what can happen. That’s it.”
In an increasing safety conscious world where we are steered away from risk and encouraged to conform to societies ideas of normality, such gladiatorial endeavour stands out even more, and the riders should be respected for their bravery in undertaking an activity that could kill them in an instant. The bravery to follow their dreams in a world where so few of us do.
MotoGP race winner Dani Pedrosa summed it up well. “When you are born, life gives you the chance to choose what you want to do,” he said. “Tomi chose to be a rider and in fact he was doing great. I just want to think that he’s been happy making his dream come true.”
Let’s take a moment to pay tribute to those who risk their lives for our entertainment (in all sports) and those who pay that ultimate price, such as young Tomizawa.
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