The first was big time scary! From my FX crash at Infineon the front brake system took a bit of a knock and had been damaged. My chief mechanic, Mark, disassembled it, went through the whole system, rebuilt it and then put it on my spare FX bike. I went out to give the spare bike a shake down and on the first lap at the end a 5th gear, 120mph straight I went for the brakes and there was absolutely nothing there. I was pumping at the lever frantically in hope of something coming back but it didn’t so I was hard on the rear brake, scrubbing off speed as best as possible with the gravel trap and tyre wall looming closer and closer. I went for as long as possible before making to the commitment to jump off it so I didn’t go head on into the tyre wall. I brought the bike around on the rear brake which made it easier to push myself away from it and think I did a pretty good job!
I landed well and tumbled for a bit but still went head first into the tyre wall at quite a pace. I blurted out quite a few swear words in relief because I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to come out of it with hardly even a mark on me. After that the brakes were scrapped. Sometimes they look perfect but if they take a decent enough knock it’s always advised that they are replaced. I was just thankful that it wasn’t at the end one of the top gear, flat out straights.
My third crash was in final FX practice. It was about halfway through the session on an out lap after having been in the pits for a couple of minutes. I peeled in to a 90 degree right and the rear just locked solid on me, much like a 2-stroke that seizes. It spun me off the inside of the bike and was a very easy crash. Something had worked it’s way loose deep inside the engine and jammed the whole thing solid. This was something beyond everybody’s control as the engine was more or less brand new from Yamaha. It was just one of them things.
