126-MPH Motorcycle Near-Miss With Ambulance Was Organizer’s Fault: Track Official
The director of a regional association says track crews weren’t responsible for a near-miss with a motorcycle rider and ambulance on track.
Officials say a regional organization mistakenly sent an ambulance onto a hot track last weekend nearly causing a major crash during a motorcycle race. The incident was caught on camera and led two racers to wreck, which caused injuries, but thankfully nothing worse.
In a letter from Ron Johnson, the regional executive for the Buccaneer Region of the Sports Car Club of America, which owns the track, he wrote managers of Roebling Road Raceway were not in control of the track during the incident. Additionally, they had no knowledge an ambulance would be on track.
“At no time during any rental period has the track management assumed control of any facet of an event or taken over track operations,” Johnson wrote. “Unfortunately, safety protocols were not followed by some WERA officials under the control of their Race Director. This breakdown of communication mistakenly gave affirmative direction to a third party EMT unit to proceed onto the racing surface while competitors were still riding at speed without any flagging or communication being shared with ontrack competitors.”
One of the riders, who asked not to be identified, recorded the near-miss at more than 125 mph during the race. In the video, the footage doesn’t appear to show any flags waved for the ambulance, which was reportedly taking another rider off the track. The incident appears near the start-finish straight at the racetrack, where an ambulance pulls out perpendicular to the course, effectively blocking the raceway for other riders. The rider said the incident was a literal and figurative nightmare, adding that he’s struggled to sleep since the near miss. The Drive reached out to the rider again, but we haven’t yet heard back. We’ll update this story if we do. The racing association that rented the track, WERA, hasn’t responded to any requests for comment.
“Roebling Road Raceway will examine this incident in exacting detail to determine if there are any procedures which can be put in place to alleviate such an incident happening again,” Johnson wrote. “Ultimately, Roebling Road Raceway is a rental facility for use by qualified personnel/organizations and has an excellent safety record due to our leasees following all safety protocols.”
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