Moto-X and Hospital with Mr Neil Hodgson

16/03/2009

Since I came over to the states Neil ‘The Wheels’ Hodgson has been barking on about this MotoX’ing lark for ages and how cool his immaculate year old 250 Honda is with carbon this, carbon that, HRC this, HRC that…you get the picture.

Anyway, lucky for me he’s now moved up to the 450’s now so his pimped up 250 was going spare which now means I can now ride it, well for a day at least. So with Neil’s pick-up full of bikes and gear we were joined by pal Owen and headed off for a Sunday of dirty fun near Victory Ville, California.

Neil was right, the tracks were awesome, the sun was out and I had a massive smile on my face from the moment Neil handed me his #100 bike, fully prepped, gleaming and ready to go.

As the day got underway there were 4 of us in the Hodgson MX group for the day, regular dirt riding pals Neil, Owen, Phil and little old me. By the end of the day there would be just 2, Owen and I. After a whole day of fantastic yet exhausting, sweaty and dusty fun it ended in disaster as Neil left the pro track and went to warm down on the amateur track where his friends were playing.
While following his buddy Phil for a few laps, they headed for a biggish jump and during takeoff Phil got it all wrong and even though he managed to take off, he landed in a big heap. Unfortunately for Neil who was mid-air when Phil ditched it could do nothing and came down right on top of his friends and his fallen bike. Both were less than great, especially good old Neil.

The end result was Phil wobbled away feeling the effects, got back to his truck and put his gear away and then drove himself to hospital feeling rather shitty, it turns out with good reason has he had a broken ankle. Neil wasn’t so lucky as he was flown to the same hospital with 5 broken ribs, a collapsed lung and a nasty dislocated shoulder thrown in for good measure. (This shoulder injury would end up ending Neil’s racing career a year later).

As I put Neil’s bike away, you could tell from the twisted bars and crash damage that it looked painful. When I saw Neil morphined up in the emergency room a few hours later with a tube sticking out of his chest struggling to breathe, it confirmed it was. When the Doctor asked Neil how his pain was and Neil said 4 out of 10, I knew the morphine was working nicely.

The crash was a pure motorcycle accident, which as we all know, can happen anytime if you ride enough. Neil’s tough and will be back but I’m sure the feeling of having that catheter pipe pushed up his 3rd eye by a cute Californian nurse and pulled out by a nerdy bloke with bucked teeth may with live with him longer than the extremely painful 5 broken ribs he’s just received.

THE END