One of the newest editions to the Race Center family, Stuart Collins (a.k.a. Victor) had a bit of a nasty fall yesterday at Broadford State Motorcycle Complex.
Stu had just smashed his PB and was making awesome progress before a little mistake forced him to run off, hit the wet grass and then fall heavily onto his shoulder. Now he has a busted collarbone, shoulder blade and 5 broken ribs ☹
It was our first weekend working with Stu after he had some suspension and maintenance work done to his Daytona 675. We were loving working with Stu, a real character and great bloke. Up until the crash, not only was he making great progress and learning heaps, but we had shared a lot of laughs too. 😊
At this stage we are not exactly sure how the incident happened. We do know that he left the pit box with a bit of a cold front tyre as his tyre warmer was playing up (never pays to buy cheap warmers). Stu was aware of the front tyre being a bit cool and was taking a little easy to allow it to build heat. He did report post-crash that he felt the tyres weren’t at their best but can’t remember what made him stand up the bike and run off track.
Daz (our most experienced mentor) was kicking himself for allowing Stu to go out with a cool front tyre as Stu is still inexperienced. Even though Stu was aware and taking it easy, we are unsure if it was a contributing factor or not. It’s never an easy call to make when it’s discovered there is a cool tyre just as the bike is set to go out, especially when riders have their heart set on racing. A few weeks earlier we were faced with a similar decision (dry tyres on a damp track). The call was made not to send the rider out, despite the rider not being happy at all about the decision. Now in hindsight, that was probably the correct decision.
As we said, we are not sure if the cool front tyre was a contributing factor, but it sucks none the less.
Get well soon Stu, you’re a bloody legend and one tough bugger!
