elephant in the room

today its a week since the roadracing claimed another young mans life .Steven Larkin lost his life after a crash in practice for the races to take place on sunday ,sadly its just the same as last year when Padraig Campbell lost his life at the end of practice,also its only two weeks since i put up a photo of Myles Byrne who died at Skerries.all this sadness has been the norm as long as men race on the roads ,the acceptance that fans like me have for these tragic events is hard for anybody outside the sport to understand.When these lads die there family always say that the meeting should go ahead which is what their son,husband,brother,or father would have wanted and this is definatly the case,the racers are a family of their own and anybody who visits the paddock regulary will see this .There is no way to make it safer and most that die are not on the biggest or fastest bikes and the powers that be will talk and talk but more young men will die in the future because sadly death and roadracing are bedfellows,I did a couple of road races in the mid eightys and it was one of the best experiences of my life ,and it this country unless you do the roads your not a real racer, a man could be Irish short circuit champion ten times bue unless he has a roadrace under his belt it means very little ,a roadracer lives more in five minutes flat out on the bike than most other people live in their lives.In conclusion if you see my blog its obvious that i am a fan of roadracing but is my pleasure of seeing racing motorcycles on the roads worth a child losing their father i don,t think so but like any addiction i will continue to go to the races sorry about the rant

Ed