My kids race GP motorcycles (Ohvale, Honda NSF250/Moto3) and it’s interesting how many well meaning but ignorant parents tell me how dangerous that is, yet they’ll gladly let their kids play soccer, do gymnastics, or (in the U.S.,) play tackle [American] football. Track racing injuries at the semi-pro and pro levels are a lot more rare than in traditional ball sports. Injuries do happen, but the safety gear is so advanced that it’s relatively rare. Far more dangerous riding a bicycle to school than racing at 200+mph on closed course racetracks.
4 kids racing for the past year in Spain and our only injury was a broken wrist while practicing on a supermoto in a parking lot. Countless crashes, but injuries have been rare. The soccer kids at their school though — seems like there is always one on crutches.
Anecdotal, sure, but actual safety and perception of safety aren’t always the same. I think last year in racing there were maybe two fatalities in the entire world in organized motorcycle racing. In just August in the USA, 7 kids died playing American football. [1] In MotoGP, only 8 in the history of the sport have died while racing, with Marco Simoncelli being the most recent in 2011. The list of pro soccer players who have died after infield incidents is extensive.[2]
My point is that “high risk” in my opinion, isn’t well defined.
Numbers have to be looked at on a per capita basis. There's also severity and frequency. The 'safest' sport I have done on an injury frequency basis is probably surfing. But when an accident does happen (outside of extreme spots), someone drowns or is bitten by a shark. Not very much middle ground.
BJJ while it looks dangerous is actually pretty safe. I have lots of small injuries but never very bad. Sprained fingers or errant black eye b/c you are in such close contact with people.
I think the most dangerous sport I've done is wakeboarding. So much so we kept ibuprofen in the boat. I finally 'retired' after tearing an ACL.
Then there's everything else in between like basketball and football.
It's also my (unproven) theory that combat sports are a lot safer than other intense sports.
For one, your partner tries to hit you but you are trained to defend yourself so most of the time you block/avoid the hits or at least do something to attenuate them.
Two, you wear protection in some of these sports.
And three, the philosophy of martial arts at least emphasises self control and you'll try to not hit as hard when your partner fails to block.
Competitions are another thing maybe, but who needs competitions...
The thing about many combat sports is not the short term injuries, but the long term CTE risk. Especially with the rise of meteoric rise of MMA, I think the community is going to have to take a hard look at blows to the head and choke-outs once there's been a few decades of data.
But couldn't these numbers be explained by scale of participation alone? There have got to be way more football and soccer games in the world than motorcycle races by multiple orders of magnitude.
>Far more dangerous riding a bicycle to school than racing at 200+mph on closed course racetracks.
I understand that the safety gear helps in MotoGP but you might be overestimating how dangerous cycling is while downplaying risks of going over 200mph on a motorcycle.
>Countless crashes, but injuries have been rare.
To me this sounds that it's just a matter of time before there is a serious injury.
> World Supersport 300 rider Vinales – the 15-year-old cousin of MotoGP race winner Maverick Vinales – tragically died in a horrific incident during the Jerez World Supersport round last weekend.
> He is the third teenager at world and European championship level to die in incidents in 2021, following 14-year-old European Talent Cup rider Hugo Millan in July and Moto3 rider Jason Dupasquier in May.
Any thoughts? I don’t really care about this but your position seems strange to me.
It's because it's not a race track. Race tracks are designed with safety in mind. Large areas on the outside of curves, gravel runouts, and padding on all fences.
The TT is a street track with rock walls, telephone poles and stop signs. Those things don't exist on race tracks for a reason. You're going to have a bad time hitting a rock wall at 180 mph.
You may be familiar if not, search 'Isle of Man onboard' on YouTube and you'll have your answer.
I should film the palms of my hands while watching those videos, they start glistening with sweat within a minute or two. If you've seen those insane rally car videos, these are worse. Relative to modern racing events, it's like working on the Golden Gate Bridge before they put the net up.
4 kids racing for the past year in Spain and our only injury was a broken wrist while practicing on a supermoto in a parking lot. Countless crashes, but injuries have been rare. The soccer kids at their school though — seems like there is always one on crutches.
Anecdotal, sure, but actual safety and perception of safety aren’t always the same. I think last year in racing there were maybe two fatalities in the entire world in organized motorcycle racing. In just August in the USA, 7 kids died playing American football. [1] In MotoGP, only 8 in the history of the sport have died while racing, with Marco Simoncelli being the most recent in 2011. The list of pro soccer players who have died after infield incidents is extensive.[2]
My point is that “high risk” in my opinion, isn’t well defined.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2024/08/28/nx-s1-5091883/middle-high-sch... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_association_football...