Most definitely. No more riding for him. No chance of him having to pay opponents' legal fees, though. Not how it works, unfortunately.

Certainly useful to the defense to show that he knows how to ride properly and is used to taking risk w/o crashing. The asshattery point will not help since it is really not at issue given that he was on track. If he had crashed on public road being a tool then it would be relevant to show that he routinely rides like a knob.

I was thinking the same. Never on track again.

I know, just wishful thinking. I would like to see tort reform, including people putting some skin in the game when they file a frivolous lawsuit.

The Chinese space station has already crashed, so I can't wish for part of that to fall on his head.

I'm not licensed in CA but isn't it comparative negligence state?

If that is correct, he can only recover the portion of the incident for which the track owners/organizers are responsible. So if the track owners are only 40% responsible for the injury then he can only recover that percentage of the overall award from them (assuming there is an award of damages).

So his pathetic riding may well play a role in this thing.

what an a$$hat... someone needs to start a negative social media campaign against his company and see how he likes it.

I think we already did, this is a popular subject on enthusiast sites. Running about 99.99% against Mr Kim, maybe a little higher.

Unlikely, but possible, depending on the judge.

California is a contributory negligence state. If he is much over 50% on that, and he ought to be, it is within the purview of the judge to stick it to him.

Blacklisted from every track on the continent is likely though.

Yes. And just for all you armchair cowboys, that vid lends itself to analysis and focus that isn't available to the rider in real time.

Yeah, no way he should sue. But to me the video doesn't demonstrate anything other than a bad choice made at speed.

Glass houses, guys.

Willing to bet Richard has more seat time on the track than everyone else on this board combined.

If there is a resident expert on sport bike racing on this board, it's him.

Why is everyone focusing on his riding skill? That had nothing to do with the lawsuit.

He is not suing because he went off the track. He is suing because the track put cinder blocks on the run off areas. And he crashed into them.

The question is.... Is that negligent? Should the run off areas be clear of debris?

Fair enough. Why are you using the term "cinder blocks"?

IMHO, if you leave the racing surface, you should be prepared to encounter anything. There are tracks operating in the USA that have concrete, unprotected walls very close to the track. If you're riding on a track like that, you should be prepared for the risk of impacting those concrete walls.

Willow Springs has unbelievably bad things off the racing surface, including huge ruts, drop-offs, giant rocks, embankments, gullies, etc. People have impacted all of them, even resulting in death.

This guy has no case, if his case were to be presented to anyone who knows about race tracks. He's probably betting on a jury being of a different mindset.

Looking at the video, it wouldn't even surprise me if he ran off the track intentionally.

Absolutely not true. You know exactly what's going on when you're out there. If you have an experience, you also know WHY.

Those weren't cinder blocks, they were sand bags. The off-track area of every track is less than perfect. Whether it's one thing or another, you will have to deal with various challenges if you go off track. That's just life.

This guy could have done a couple diferent things after he left the track to deal with the bags but he didn't have the presence of mind to deal with the situation correctly and he also lacked the skills every roadracer should have. There's a reason that every single successful roadracer trains on a dirt bike. This guy could have used that experience.

If you read the Revzilla article, they state that in his Youtube videos, he is running at a pace only 10 seconds a lap slower than the MotoAmerica mid-field.

Something else happened. He seems to possess the skills.

I think he was talking about the offroad portion of skills on two wheels.

But as to his pavement skills, either his bike failed, or he intentionally crashed is what you're saying?

I read the article. He may be capable of that pace (I'll not lay money on that, though) but I can promise you they were going through that corner at nowhere near that sort of pace. Turn 5 is a fairly fast one and the exit is uphill with good camber. The guy he was following was going at a fast pace for a streetbike ride but was way off any sort of competitive speed through that corner. Neither of them was anywhere close to the right line through the corner.

If you watch the video, dip**** is coming into the corner at a pretty lazy pace and my guess is that his idea was to accelerate through the corner and pass the guy before turn 6. Didn't work out. Apart from his bad entry and missed apex, he was also slow to figure out he was in trouble, then he made the wrong choice to bail instead of leaning more and finishing off the corner. Even if he hadn't backed out of the throttle completely, he could have tightened his line a bunch by rolling out of it a little bit to the point that he was scrubbing a little speed. Hell, easing on the rear brake would have tightened his line, even if he did nothing to the throttle position. I use the rear brake all the time to make small adjustments to my line in a corner.

He clearly has no dirtbike skills, as he tried to finish the corner in the dirt, rather than standing it up and running to the right of the bags. He also did the wrong thing when he hit the bag, which naturally caused him to get hit in the ass and launched into space. Notice how quick he lost his grip on the bars. A better rider would have made the corner, no problem. A more experienced rider would have saved it in the dirt. He did neither. He's learned his (limited) skills by street riding. He needs better instruction and vastly more seat time, both on a lighter, less powerful bike and also on a dirt bike.

Here's a video of him lapping in the mid-1:40's. That's 18-20 seconds a lap slower than a superstock 1000 bike can run, which is a fairly large amount of time (some would say an eternity) for a track as short and slow as Laguna Seca.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UilI_UpK8xo

Feel free to observe his riding skills. He takes better lines in this video but he lacks any sort of finesse. Take note of how he downshifts.

Even more reason to think he should have been well aware of the risks and track conditions, no?
I mean, a rider with the skills and experience he apparently possesses should have acknowledged the (increasing) risk as he progressed up the ladder to the faster run-groups, IMO.

I could maybe understand a request to pay his medical bills, but $15MM?? Yeah, OK...
Why would you want to seek such ludicrous punitive damages from a company that facilitates your ability to do the thing you love...unless you are a bottom-feeding scumbag?

To relate to our other shared passion (sky jumping), I've broken bones at a couple DZs, to include some pretty hefty medical bills, and the thought to sue any of them (or even ask for one cent) never crossed my mind.

A big payday would delay the demise of his company by a few years. Read up on his company. It's not a pretty story.

this. I have many years of road racing behind me. I will not comment on his riding ability but the sand bags should not be there during a motorcycle track event. the track was not ready for the event. I have never seen sand bags at a track in my 10 years of road racing scoots.

my advice would be to take any proceeds and look at another business venture...or...

Go to Laguna this time of year, you'll see them. They are the lesser of two evils, in my opinion. The track surface would probably be a mess without them. Even without them, running off the track in certain areas would be no picnic. I suspect there's not enough money in the track rental fee for a track day like this, to groom the ground at the track to the same standards that they use for a pro event. Maybe they will discontinue track days there.

Other tracks are far worse. I was at Topeka when the AMA returned there in 2009. There was considerable consternation regarding the placement of concrete barriers on the left side of the straightaway, which has a kink in it as it crests a rise. Some riders refused to ride that weekend, Matt Mladin retired from the sport completely and went home. In the end, they elected to remove some of the barriers which then further exposed a drainage ditch on the left side. At the start of one of the races, one rider went off the track at that point and disappeared completely from view.

I'm not a motorcycle guy, some questions for those that are:

I see a lot more front wheel turn in as the guy is going wide
Too much front brake? Too fast entry?

My karting experience is that I want to balance the kart onto three wheels for a good smooth corner exit, the outer rear wheel being off center from the CG provides both thrust and rotation allowing me to free up and straighten steering. The inner wheel in contrast when on throttle and if it is contact requires more front wheel turn in to counter its off center push.

While I do not have front brakes on the kart, I imagine that front brake off center when leaned over would result in the motorcycle understeering like I see in the video. I would think that rear brake would do the same up to a point it causes traction loss where the rear slides out?

Throttling hard out of the corner should have resulted in over steer instead of pushing out? Or is the bike setup with an incredible amount of understeer to counter this effect?

Anyway, lawsuit seems excessive to me. If someone has a safety problem they shouldn't be out on the track anyway. If they are out on the track then they don't have a problem with the conditions.

Whether they should be there during a motorcycle event or not is irrelevant in the context of his lawsuit. They were there and he knew they were there. No one forced him to go out. He made the final decision regarding the level of risk he was willing to accept, and it was an informed decision at that.

He might have a case if the track day management, or the track owners, tried to hide the the fact that they were there in some way. They did not - the sandbags were in plain sight for all to see, and it sounds like their presence is common knowledge. He had not only been on this track many times in the past, he had been out in the morning the day this happened - in an afternoon session.

What would you do if you felt a track was unsafe? I think most of us would bring it up with the organizers. If it were bad enough, and they refused to fix it, I think most of us would either not go out or, if it were just a track day (like this) I think we would go out anyway and just slow down in that particular section of track. Not really something you racers can do, but this was just a track day. He did none of that.

I've always thought that turn 9 is the widow-maker @ Willow Springs, probably because one day when I was there an e46 M3 rolled and went windshield first into the beginning of the low wall. :eek:

The old Riverside Raceway was so gnarly that it made Willow look like it was designed by insurance writers.

What if there were 100's of large green garbage dumpsters scattered all over the run off area?
Also, scattered construction equipment like bulldozers and excavators just a few inches off the track.
Riders know they are there. Would you think that is negligent? Or is the track ready for use?

Now you are just being ridiculous. Riders do make decisions as to whether or not a given track in a given condition is acceptable to them, or not. I gave you one example above, where the most successful rider in the history of the AMA decided that a particular track (and the idiots that were running the series that year) were not acceptable to him. Riders often decide not to run at Mid Ohio, if it's wet. In the end, you do have the right to park your bike and not run, and that's entirely up to you.

That's why in my earlier comments, I was focused on his apparent reluctance to ride through that, ON TRACK. These aren't enduro bikes, so it would seem like sitting up and taking your chances in the dirt would/could be disastrous. Even removing the sandbags from the equation, the off track surface looks full of ruts and uneven grading. Then of course his lawsuit would be that the organizers failed to properly smooth and grade the track :rolleyes::rolleyes:. Granted the video has been greatly slowed down at the point of his "about to eat chit" moments, so yeah, the arm chair brigade will judge. However, the only reason anyone gives a damn (fueling all the judgmental comments) is that this fool is suing...

For those that took offense at my quote of Richard's post-I was agreeing with his point, although it wasn't perhaps clear. Riders make mistakes. That was in his first sentence, and that's what happens at trackdays. Whether this beyoch should prevail in his stupid lawsuit has nothing to do with why he got off of the racing surface, its what the runoff area should have been like.

For what its worth, imho he loses once it is made clear that he had a) missed the drivers meeting, and b) put in multiple laps, probably sessions, at Laguna before.

But there's no need for a bunch of seasoned folks to shout that not only is he a beyoch but look, he missed a corner and stood it up.

Apologies for missing this post. Thank you for the commentary. It does help me understand.

For some reason I missed this post, it has the answer to my questions.

A few inches off the track? Really?

What if Aliens invaded the Earth and an all out global war for the survival of man broke out and what if during that apocalyptic event the track got bombed to all hell and back leaving enormous 50 foot wide craters that went all the way down to the earths core?

Riders know they are there. Would you think that is negligent? Or is the track ready for use?

I've been reading up on this thru other sources. The BIGGER implications are: Maybe seeing the end of track days and even some racing. All these tracks and schools have insurance.

Win, lose or draw, just defending suits like this will change the big picture.

For what it's worth, I raced Willow Springs one time on a motorcycle and went wide off Turn 8 into the soft stuff. I stayed on and rejoined the race. It can be done.

EXACTLY. track days, autocross events, karting, "run what ya brung" drag nights--all can be impacted by this.

This can't be the first time someone has tried to sue past the waiver in a trackday crash. Not in America. Can't be the first or even in the first hundred. :cool:

I agree. And that makes me think this lawyer is looking at a different angle. And I'm pretty sure every track waiver will be getting updated after this is all said and done.

I've heard the saying, "if you can't afford to push your car off a cliff, don't put it on a racetrack".

I wonder if there's a similar saying about motorcycle riders. If there isn't we should think about making one up.

It's just a money grab. The outrageous initial damage amount, coupled with how quickly they offered to settle for a percentage of that, indicates he's just trying to get in their pockets. His business is strapped for cash and going nowhere, my guess is while he was sitting on his couch nursing his busted leg, he came up with a plan to solve that problem. If you read reviews of his company and his management style on sites like glassdoor.com, he comes across as a clueless, know-it-all, *******. Nobody has good things to say about the guy.