Confronting a Nightmare
by Robert Beaupre

As I began to fall asleep last Saturday night, thinking of the next day’s race at Carson, I encountered an unexpected terror. Out of the dull state between wake and sleep, a scene crept into my mind: I was lying on the track after a crash, and I couldn’t feel my arms or legs. I felt the breathless, stunned feeling that follows any serious fall, only worse because of the dawning realization that I couldn’t move. The sheer terror of this jolted me awake. Sleep did not come easily afterward.

I remembered that the night before, my wife had had a dream in which I died while racing. Outside, the wind had begun howling, and it wasn’t supposed to stop until after tomorrow’s race. If my life were a movie, all this foreshadowing would have had me on the edge of my seat.

I have always known that injuries, all the way up to paralysis and death, are not unheard of in motocross. But in that waking dream, the sheer helplessness of being unable to move was enough to drive me to a panic that one can only comprehend in the moment. As I lay awake afterward, I reassessed my understanding of the threats that exist for us all in motocross.

Over the years, motocross has seen some of its best riders halted by serious injury. David Bailey and Danny Chandler are perhaps the most prominent cases of paralysis, and Jimmy Button (who has regained some of his functioning over the years) and Donavan Mitchell stand as more recent examples. Donnie Hansen suffered a head injury in 1982 that ended his career at a time when he was arguably the greatest rider in the world. And Jim West and Jason Ciarletta top the list of tragedies as the only riders to die as a result of injuries in AMA professional racing.

While I sometimes tell myself that my skill and experience on a bike will keep me safe on the track, it usually isn’t too comforting considering that not even David Bailey was immune to misfortune on a motorcycle.

Serious injuries are a threat that we usually feel better avoiding, but there are times when the truth is unavoidable. Beyond the injuries of the stars, many of us know the chill of seeing a fellow rider down amidst yellow flags in the middle of a race, only to return the next lap to see the yellows still waving--and a crowd gathering. While we continue to ride past the flags, nowhere are we more reminded of our own vulnerability--short of the times in which the flags wave for us.

Most of the times the rider will be okay, or at least capable of a full recovery. But the times when a recovery will not occur still remain. Beneath all the phrases that we use to cushion the blow of another’s misfortune, such as “he got hurt doing what he loved,” there remains the eerie uncertainty of how it feels to cope with such a fate. I got only a little taste of it in my dream, and it was enough to keep me awake for half the night. How would it feel if it were real?

While I can’t say for sure, I intend to never marginalize these risks. Not only because I want to stay safe, but because I also hope that this awareness will also help me appreciate the good fortune possessed by anyone who survives hurling a 220-pound machine over massive dirt obstacles each weekend.

Incidentally, I went to Carson in spite of the foreshadowing. I had a decent race, and thankfully emerged in one piece. Then again, any race from which I emerge in one piece is probably better than decent, since it means that I will get the chance to race again. That is, unless a car accident, electrical short, or brain aneurysm gets me before the next drop of the gate.

Maybe I’m safer on the track than I think.


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