Incredibly lucky escape - S1000RR hit by car at The Ring

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It's a good lesson on the dangers of the nurburgring. I have been around it on a motocycle and it is scary stuff with the traffic. Looking at the incident on the video I dont see the car driver doing anything particularly wrong, the bike came up his blind spot and the driver would have been drawn to the car that had just overtaken. Not a great place/moment for the bike to try and get past imo.
 
It's a good lesson on the dangers of the nurburgring. I have been around it on a motocycle and it is scary stuff with the traffic. Looking at the incident on the video I dont see the car driver doing anything particularly wrong, the bike came up his blind spot and the driver would have been drawn to the car that had just overtaken. Not a great place/moment for the bike to try and get past imo.

Cars and bikes out at the same time is dangerous.

I've not ridden, but I have driven the ring a few times. Bikers have died on 2 of my visits there.
 
Hey guys, this is my vid. It was quite an exciting weekend :) I've added a full description to the youtube page as it's gone viral and loads of people have been asking questions. Its also good to have external analysis of my riding to help not end up in the same position again. For what it's worth the wide angle camera doesn't quite show the reality and the cars behind me made statements to the police that completely agreed with mine. Hoprfully not to long and boring but here's a bit of extended write up :


We have done a weekend trip out to the Ring for the last couple of years with a good group of mates on bikes and fast cars. I love the place, there?s nothing quite like it anywhere in the world. The rollercoaster track is an amazing thing to experience and you simply cannot appreciate the extreme gradients from watching videos or playing computer games. I wouldn?t want to dedicate to it like some people do as I would get obsessed with pushing for lap times which is a road I don?t want to go down on a busy public track and more so after this experience! My attitude to the place is that I ride it at 90% fast where it feels safe to do so but try to keep plenty in reserve on the many more dangerous areas and especially when there is lots of traffic about.We got out on the Friday night for a couple of sighting laps and the S1000RR thats normally my road bike felt pretty alien. I started racing in Thundersport GB freshman this year on a Yamaha R6 so the BMW was feeling quite big and heavy and the cold track was slippery. It was nice to be back out there all the same as we cruised around at an average pace.


On the Saturday it was the combined Nordschleife and GP track layout which we had not run before and the sun was out so we were excited to get on with out. The track had other ideas and was closed for most of the morning due to crashes and the following clean ups. When they reopen they don?t let bikes out for another twenty minutes as they let the cars spread out any remaining oil clean up powder. It also means it?s calmed down a little by the time the more vulnerable bikes get out. My first proper lap didn?t happen until 1300hrs. I?d been running the BMWs active suspension on harder front settings but set it back to default after the last nights slippery laps. In the warmer conditions the BMW and it?s Supercorsas felt amazing and whilst the traffic was heavy we still had a couple of really good quick laps. Looking back at the vids we were quicker than previous visits straight away on the first lap even going easy and with heavy traffic. It?s always nice to be going quicker with less effort and smoother riding. After a quick rest I did another two laps in a row as there was a lot of traffic and I was expecting it to close due to more crashes. I?d be interested in seeing the stats for crashes on the combined GP versus the normal Nordschleife layout as it seemed like every thirty minutes someone crashed on the GP track and they would close everything. It?s possibly the reason why it doesn?t get run very often?


By my fourth lap I was feeling comfortable, loving the bike and getting a bit quicker but still wary to not push too much in all the traffic. It felt particularly busy down through to Adenauer bridge and the fast sections through to the Karussell were not much better. At this point I had reached the group of cars including the one that pulled out on me. It?s easy to analyse in hindsight when watching the video but at the time you are relying more on instinct and general rules. Living in London I?m unfortunate enough to have a lot of heavy traffic to deal with and my rules are fairly simple; I try to always have an escape plan in case something happens and when I pass I do it as quick as I can to avoid being in the danger zone for any length of time. I rarely pass on a corner at the Ring so I had held back behind the first car around the Karussell and passed on the exit once he had moved to the right to let me by.

The orange Porsche was in front of me over taking the Seat so from my point of view I had a clear run through after him. In hindsight this was my biggest safety mistake. I didn?t see that the Seat was being held up by the slow car in front of him and impatient to get out. I love to drive cars fast as well and I know that it is hard for a driver to see a biker when they arrive so much quicker but in this case I still honestly believe that the driver did not check his mirror at all after the Porsche passed. The Seat gives one flash of his indicator at the same time as he starts to pull out before realising the Porsche is already passing. In the split second this was happening I made the wrong decision to continue passing as I thought the Seat driver had become aware of passing traffic.


As I passed him the Seat pulled out into me and knocked me off the track. I knew well not to pull the front brake on the grass and so ended up in the drainage gravel riding the bottom of the barrier at 100mph. All I could think was that at some point the front would fold and I needed to try and hold it to scrub as much speed off as possible before the inevitable. Somehow I managed to keep it upright until it pinged me off towards the track again. The curbing at that point is massive so I got launched onto the track at a fair speed but managed to get the brakes on for a moment on the tarmac before reaching the other side. I was still going at a fair pace and the nose was down from braking so I had to risk putting a little bit of power on to bring it up and get some control so I didn?t hit the other barrier square on. I managed to turn it enough to just hit it with my knee and then get full control of the bike back, if not my heart rate. I came back onto the track and got off the racing line and briefly checked everything was good with the bike and that there was no need to stop on what would be a dangerous area.


The cars all came by with many giving me the thumbs up to check I was ok which I returned thankful of people looking out for me. I was not sure where the Seat driver was at this point as it all happened too fast so I wasn?t sure which car it was until I got back to the pit area.Once I?d got back the marshals came over looking for me as the police would need a statement. I explained that the orange Porsche had just passed and I felt the line was clear for myself as well and the Seat had pulled out on me without looking. The driver refused to admit any blame or say sorry as he wanted to go through insurance. Luckily another car was just behind me and they had separately given a statement saying exactly the same thing to the police. Whilst I?ve certainly learnt a safety lesson or two, wide angle videos always give a distorted reality and this opinion of people that were right there behind me at the time it happened is important for me as it shows that whilst it was the wrong decision, it was not an unreasonable one to pass at the time. In future I?ll be a lot more wary when following a passing car that the one being passed may not be able to see me on a bike.The police took statements and footage as evidence and the driver of the Seat is under investigation for dangerous driving. I?m guessing thats a pretty standard thing at The Ring and that since he is under investigation it at least will not come back to my insurance. The bike is miraculously hardly touched. There are scratches on the crash bungs and foot pegs and a very small mark on the exhaust. I?m expecting gravel rash on the lower fairing but didn?t see anything obvious when checking at the track.
 
Fair play :). As others have said, well done on saving yourself and the bike. Thanks for sharing.
 
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