There are near-misses and then there are ‘look away from the screen, clench your butthole, holding breath, how in the hell did he miss that’ near-misses as MotoAmerica rider Trevor Standish and anyone watching him this weekend no doubt experienced.
The American racer flirted inches - née millimeters - with a potentially more catastrophic accident during this weekend’s MotoAmerican Superbike supporting Twins class at the Barber Motorsports Park.
Footage from the event shows him folding his Suzuki under braking in tricky wet weather conditions, turning him into a luge athlete as he skates on his back so quickly that he is able to catch and overtake the motorcycle in front of him.
Physics then takes its course and sends Standish across and in front of said motorcycle - raced by Hayden Schultz - sliding so close to the front wheel that surely - SURELY - they would make contact.
And yet, they don’t with Standish rolling off stage left as Schultz gets away with a minor jink to the left in avoidance. Almost alarmingly, focus on Schultz and you don’t even see his head move, but then who expects to see a human overtaking you on a race track…?
Motorsport is dangerous - it says so right on the ticket, if you can remember what they look like - and it doesn’t take a genius to recognise why motorcycle racing comes with a hefty dose of risk, so it’s fair to say there is belief in divine intervention up and down the paddock.
No harm done and as Baz Luhrmann once said, you should scare yourself once everyday. So that’s our fill for the day. I’m off to watch videos of frolicking puppies.
