In part three of his latest exclusive column for Crash.net, Chaz Davies reveals the unexpected consequences of a minor arm injury sustained while testing the Ducati MotoGP bike at Mugello, and just days before the AMA season finale.
In part four, Chaz considers his future options - including the chance of riding for d'Antin Ducati in the final rounds of the 2007 MotoGP season...
After Mugello my Dad and I flew back to London. I had a terrible night's sleep after stiffening up from the crash and the elbow was proving fairly tender. I was up early Thursday morning to get to Heathrow and catch my 11hr flight into San Francisco for the last round of the AMA at Laguna Seca.
I can quite easily say that those 11 hours were the longest 11 hours of my life. Within 10 minutes of taking off I started getting the shakes, freezing with 5 blankets on me then the next minute sweating and peeling all the blankets back off. My elbow was throbbing and to make matters worse I was sat in the window seat on the far right of the plane with a big guy sat next to me, giving me the odd jab with his elbow - not cool! It was pure hell!
After a few hours of putting up with it, things didn’t seem to be improving so I hit the seat service button to call one of the air hostesses. I asked if there was any chance of an upgrade to business/first class, b***ocks to the expense - this was serious!
The plane was completely full so she asked me if I wanted to try getting on the oxygen at the back of the plane as the oxygen level in the cabin is pretty low. This helped a bit, it was no miracle but anything was better than nothing. I stuck it out to the end of the flight and was gagging to get to a hotel and crash out on a comfortable bed.
