Paolo Simoncelli says marshals did their best in Malaysia

[resist]

I saw this story this morning and thought it was one of the most inspiring things I've seen.

With marshals under fire for dropping the stretcher carrying Marco Simoncelli, the man most affected, and the man who was there on the scene says they did nothing wrong.

Simoncelli's fathers supports marshals | Fox Sports

No wonder his son was such a fantastic person.

[jules_1972]

Well said....

[etholred]

Something that no Father should go through!
What a brave Man!

[PlayDoh]

Legends, both Father and Son

[Tic]

Reading some of the tributes and storys about the whole event and the people who knew Simoncelli is rough.
Alot of people out there really loved this guy, this one about his fathers comments was a tough one to read aswell.

Its the sort of stuff that brings a tear to your eye.

[Red_is_Best]

"Before the start we would shake hands and hug. I did that on Sunday too, but I guess I got something wrong."

It is horrible to already hear him blaming himself, but I assume it would be hard not to.

[SPman]

Reading some of the tributes and storys about the whole event and the people who knew Simoncelli is rough.
Alot of people out there really loved this guy, this one about his fathers comments was a tough one to read aswell.

Its the sort of stuff that brings a tear to your eye.

Quite true.

[datsikk]

If only their were more people like this in the world... Sadly, we have one less.

[Rocket]

Sad story indeed.
I'd rather see someone asking AGV some hard questions about his self removing helmet.

[Desmo]

I suspect if his helmet didn't give, something else would have....

[Stephan]

Sad story indeed.
I'd rather see someone asking AGV some hard questions about his self removing helmet.

There is only so much force a helmet can take. I would think, the quality of the helmet would have been of the highest standard.

[Blazon]

Even if the helmet stayed on the force of the impact would have broken his neck.

Italian TV were showing a prototype for a neck bag. It looked like a life jacket with padding on the back of the neck
and along the spinal column... a collision like that, I'm not sure it would help.

[Barfridge]

2 bikes, combined mass of over 400kg hitting your spine almost simultaneously at huge speed. There's nothing you could wear that would be light enough or give enough range of motion that could do much in that sort of situation.

[GD66]

Sad but true Fridge, the much-maligned pic the Daily Mail ran that attracted so much criticism shows the incredible force of the impact on the poor bugger : I doubt any helmet could have withstood such a blow and stayed on, big hair or not. Looked like the strap broke, but small wonder. Next year I will have been going to the bike races for 50 years, and I can say without hesitation I've NEVER seen an accident anything like that one : just plain old shitty bad luck. Very sad.

[Old frt]

I think it's high time the speculation ended, the helmet was not at fault, Edwards and Rossi were not at fault. As GD said it was just plain shitty bad luck.
Let it be, Nothing will bring him back. Paolo has accepted that, so should we.

[GD66]

Amazing poise and grace shown by Paolo in what is the saddest time of his life. Not just exempting the marshals from blame, but being candid and generous enough to dignify Marco's sad passing by sharing his views with us all. A lot to be learnt from his amazing attitude. Hell of a guy : who among us could be so at peace while surrounded by hell ?

[Benno #03]

Well Put GD66. Agree Completely.

[Dr. Venkman]

Amazing poise and grace shown by Paolo in what is the saddest time of his life. Not just exempting the marshals from blame, but being candid and generous enough to dignify Marco's sad passing by sharing his views with us all. A lot to be learnt from his amazing attitude. Hell of a guy : who among us could be so at peace while surrounded by hell ?

Well Put GD66. Agree Completely.

I feel the same way too, no parent should ever outlive their child.

One question that has been bugging me with all the incidents, in the US the Indycar and NASCAR formats have professional safety/rescue crews, why do F1/MotoGP/WSBK yada yada yada not have them?

I know that in Dan Wheldon's and Marco's cases they probably wouldn't have made much of a difference, but should they not have a professional crew that travels with the circus?

[thro]

2 bikes, combined mass of over 400kg hitting your spine almost simultaneously at huge speed. There's nothing you could wear that would be light enough or give enough range of motion that could do much in that sort of situation.

We can look at how to prevent injuries like this, but the unfortunate fact is that they WILL happen until/unless we ban motorcycle racing. Which would be stupid. Everything in life involves some degree of risk, if you remove ALL risk from every aspect of life, life will not be worth living.

Something like this happening is an unfortunate risk of racing these machines.

It was a totally freak accident and no helmet or protective gear (that would enable one to still ride a bike or even walk around without issues) is going to protect against critical injury in that situation.


Paolo Simoncelli sounds like a very wise and reasonable man. I think anyone watching the accident as it happened would have been assuming the worst, but it still takes a lot of self-control and restraint to accept that his son was likely much too far gone to save on impact and there is nothing that anyone could have done to change that, either before the accident, during the race, or after impact. Most people who are normally rational thinkers would lose the plot in his situation and be looking to lay blame, justified or not.


And to people blaming the helmet - for it to come off like that... if the helmet didn't come off, his neck would certainly have broken and possibly his head would have come off instead. Or at least his jaw probably would have broken and then come loose...


The only thing i hope comes out of this is some investigation into making the tyres work better during the opening laps. So many crashes this year have been influenced by the fact that the tyres are so hard to get up to temperature without binning the bike. Simoncelli multiple times, edwards, crutchlow and others that I am sure to have forgotten.

I've got no idea how you could regulate that, but perhaps giving teams the option for more tyre comounds, rather than all being forced to race with tyres that may not actually work on their bike would be a start.


Binning the bike at the end of the race, or (more likely) having the tyres gradually "go off" at race distance and gradually adjusting to it would be much safer than having them last just fine all race, but being a nightmare on the first 3 laps - which is when there is so much traffic and a much higher probability of involving multiple bikes in a crash.


edit:
pretty sure motoGP does have a travelling medical crew with them. I know F1 did/does (Senna was friends with him as per the senna movie) and Doctor Costa was interviewed a lot in Faster (and multiple riders discussed him). However, the marshals at the side of the track (first responders) are likely volunteers - the travelling medic is highly unlikely to be very first on the scene.

[The Nurse 40]

Truer words can never be honestly more spoken, than this dad (any dad) ...paying tribute to farewell his son ...ciao Marco - sadly, Ciao Marco xxx