We’ve seen a fair few bizarre incidents in Superbike competition over the last year, from Jonathan Rea’s ‘drop, roll and carry on’ tumble at Misano last year to Scott Redding and Andrew Irwin’s Cadwell Park collision, resulting in an expletive-laden tirade caught on an on-board camera.
However, this could well become our favourite Superbike mishap of the last twelve months, not just for the incident itself but also for the bungling misfortune that came afterwards.
While the Malaysian Superbike Championship (MSBK 1000) isn’t quite the high standard of other national series’, it doesn’t mean riders can’t be involved in similarly spectacular incidents as demonstrated by this somewhat wild attempt to overtake up the inside of the right Turn 9 hairpin.
The perpetrator here is Daniel Haiqal, who comes from a long way back on his Kawasaki in his attempts to pass Team Haip Aik Suzuki rider Khoo Chee Ten, leading to the pair clattering into the side of each other.
However, instead of going down, the motorbikes interlock together with the Kawasaki’s handlebar seemingly jammed under the seat of the Suzuki. Haiqal comes off having practiced the splits across his own bike and the rear wheel of the Suzuki (he was reported to be OK) while Khoo is stuck going round in circles as he attempts to get the offending Kawasaki of his bike.
It’s to no avail with a confused looking Khoo is forced to abandon the Suzuki, the two bikes left standing upright together and the red flags deployed.
Watch the collision here…
Worse was the follow for Khoo though. While he was permitted to restart, marshals (mistakenly) refused him to rider his bike to the pits via the service road. Instead, he had to go all the way round – a long distance given Sepang’s size - and couldn’t get back to the pits in time to restart.
In short, a bad day at the office…
Bonus Video: Shall we dance…?
Perhaps our favourite weird incident involving race bikes is this one from a Superstock event at Magny-Cours in France in 2011.
Two bikes came down at the Adelaide hairpin and lock bars, causing them to pirouette on the ground elegantly while their agitated riders attempt to free them before giving up and watching their machines indulge in a bit of tango…
The guy with the yellow helmet though… too funny.
