“That accident was the turning point” - How Simon Crafar found his way back to MotoGP

The turning point in Simon Crafar’s post-racing career came when a road accident left him lying on the ground in Romania, feeling like “the bottom half of my body was nailed to the road”.

The New Zealander suffered serious back injuries after being hit by a car while helping plan the 2009 Red Bull Romaniacs hard enduro event.

Unable to walk for almost a year, the lengthy recovery and rehabilitation prompted the 500cc Grand Prix winner and WorldSBK podium finisher to reassess his life after racing.

Speaking on the latest edition of the Crash.net MotoGP podcast, Crafar, now Chairman of the FIM MotoGP Stewards, explained:

“I did my apprenticeship as a motorcycle mechanic in New Zealand, so I was always very interested in all the tech stuff while I was a racer, probably too much!

“I’d spoken to Mats Larsson, the boss of the race department at Ohlins, and said, ‘I want to be an Ohlins tech after I finish racing’. So we did a deal and I went to work for Mats.

“As you see on TV, it’s normally tyre technicians, suspension technicians, the data guy, crew chief and rider who are all in a huddle together in the pits.

“It wasn't intimidating for me to just change position in that huddle, which was a big advantage. And I learned so much from my workmates and Mats to back up the tech side.

“But that same year my son was born, who's 25 now.

“Mats gave me a contract for the second year, including the money I wanted. But I realised that if I sign this, there's a good chance I'll end up divorced. Because my wife's at home in Andorra with no support and I'm on the road most of the year.

“I realised I can't do it, which is why I ended up back on a bike in BSB, which wasn't the right move. But I didn't know what else to do and still be with my family.

“So I had to figure out another way.”

“When I finished racing, it was brutal”

Crafar admitted that the transition from professional racer to normal life was ‘brutal’.

“It's not easy to stop riding. I've carved out this career path, and looking from the outside it might seem smooth, but as they say you don't learn from the good times, you learn from the bad ones.

“So winning the British GP didn't teach me much, it just helped my bank account a little bit and it was something I always wanted to be able to tick off.

“But when I finished racing, it was brutal. Everything, your identity as a sportsperson, is gone.

“Probably two or three years in, a very good friend of mine Paul Jones - my teammate at Virgin Yamaha along with Steve Plater in the last year that I raced - came to stay with me.

“He said, ‘Simon, what's wrong?’ I just went, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘Every time I see you, you're angrier’.

“If my wife had said that, I wouldn't have listened. Just because the relationship's too close, you'd think that she was grumpy at me for something.

“But he had no reason to say it. So it makes you really take a look at yourself. And I realised that I think I'm depressed.

“Up until then, I didn't know what depressed was! I'm a pretty happy fellow in general. But to go from such a busy life in racing, from teens to early 30s, and then it's all gone.

“And it kind of is your identity gone as well. The phone stops ringing. It's totally cold turkey!

“It took a while to figure out. I wasn't proud of those years because I went from trying to achieve something and being totally driven, to being lost, basically.

“When you finish your sports career, I think you're so unfinished as a person, because your life has been so limited.

“I think I had to have the kids and realise how amazing that is, but also how hard, with my wife and I… Those are the things that shape you.

“But the big one for me in the end was when I got hit by a car on a dirt bike.”

“I thought I wasn't going to walk again”

Crafar had competed in the Red Bull Romaniacs twice before disaster struck while working on the event.

“I was still quite lost in figuring out what I wanted to do, and I wanted a challenge.

“I’d raced the Red Bull Romaniacs for two years and got to know the owner, Martin, who's still a good friend. Then I was working for the event, marking out the track, when I was hit by a local car coming the other way.

“My workmates were looking at me, and they realised as well by the way I was moving… It felt like the bottom half of my body was nailed to the road.

“I knew straight away what had happened, because I had no feeling below mid-chest.

“I thought I wasn't going to walk again, which is extremely scary, terrifying. And it made me look at my life, because you've got a fair while lying on your back and trying to figure out the best way out of this.

“I realised that I was proud of my career, but I was ashamed personally from the end of my career to that moment.

“I did lots and made good friends, but I was ashamed of my approach, because I was lying in that bed and when my wife and kids came to visit me for the first time, I realised they are all that matters and I've spent the last years looking the other way for something to replace racing.

“That made me so mad, because I thought I’m never going to make love to my wife again, and never run around playing with my kids again. And that is bloody scary. I'll be honest, I hated myself at that moment. I thought, I've f**ked it all up. And this is where it ends.

“I didn't stay down. My kids came to visit me, and I’d do wheelies in the wheelchair through the shopping centre with one on my lap and one hanging off the axle at the back. And I realised, whatever happens, I'm going to survive this.

“I had to go through 11 months to get walking again.

“But that accident was the turning point of figuring out what to do, which was be a good husband and good father first.

“I’d also burned through my cash reserve, and I was in the shit by the time I got out of hospital, which is another big motivator!”

From hospital to Motovudu

While still in hospital, Crafar began planning the riding school that would form the next chapter in his career.

“I thought, ‘what can I do to be proud of, while being a better hubby and father and paying the bills?’ And it was the riding school.

“I made Motovudu, because I genuinely believed it was missing. I'd already done some teaching on track with another company and didn’t really like what was out there. So I thought, why not make something that I learned the hard way, how to go fast on track, safer.

“I started putting it together in hospital - and it worked! We did the school for 13 years, I think 11 with my own company. My wife and myself built that with the help of Guy Davies.

“By the time the school was going well, which was about probably three years in, and we'd worked our way out of the financial trouble, that was the first time I felt proud of something again after racing.

“And the school then led to other things.”

Return to MotoGP

Crafar eventually returned to the paddock when he was approached by Dorna for the role of MotoGP pitlane reporter.

“I didn't see it coming. I'd done an interview, where Mick Doohan and myself were talking through [1998] qualifying in Assen and my Donington win… Apparently, I did the interview in one take, and they put my name on a list for when they needed someone.

“About six months or more after, I got asked to meet them the next time I came to a race. I didn't take it seriously! I thought, ‘oh, they want another video’. Then it went on another six months and they said, ‘Hey, are you coming?’

“When we met up, they offered the job. I asked my family and they said, go for it. So it was my step back in the paddock.

“It wasn't easy because I'd done the technical side as a mechanic, the racing and the tech stuff after with Ohlins. Then the teaching on track, which helps you put it into words for people.

“But the commentary was something so totally different and I struggled in the beginning!

“I'd never had to use my brain to do two things at once in that way. It’s so difficult to talk about one thing, listen carefully to the answer while at the same time preparing another question about something else.

“Manel Arroyo, who was our big boss in the TV department at the time, said he used to do the job in Formula 1. He said the first year, you're in the deep end. The second year, you consolidate what you've learned. And the third year, you nail it.

“I just kind of nodded and thought ‘I'll do it faster than that!’ And he was dead right.

“First year you struggle, make all the mistakes. Second year you put it all together. And third year you're on it, you've polished it and away you go.

“It was hard, I had to learn a totally different career compared to anything else that I’d done. But I've got to say that without doing that, the next step would have been harder.”

That next step was becoming chairman of the FIM MotoGP Stewards, with Crafar succeeding Freddie Spencer at the start of 2025.