KWR Ducati’s Kyle Wyman and Yoshimura
Suzuki’s Josh Herrin both crashed during MotoAmerica EBC Brakes Superbike Race
One during the combined World Superbike and MotoAmerica event at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca last month, and said that cornerworkers who pulled their crashed racebikes out of gravel traps carelessly caused additional damage. Wyman added that he saw a cornerworker using a cell phone to make a video instead of paying attention to what was happening as riders approached the crash scene.Today at Sonoma Raceway, Wyman and Herrin repeated those charges. And despite a cornerworking organization official stating that a standard review of closed-circuit track videos didn’t show cornerworkers using their cell phones following the Wyman and Herrin crashes, an independent video from another crash, in another corner, showed a cornerworker staring at their phone while racebikes were on course.

Herrin ran off Turn Six at high speed and crashed his factory
Suzuki GSX-R1000 in the gravel trap. “One side of my bike was damaged, but the other side didn’t
even have a scratch on it,” Herrin told Roadracingworld.com. “They took my bike
behind the wall, and put it down on the side that wasn’t damaged. I was like,
‘What the hell?’”

Prior to Herrin’s crash, Wyman fell after getting hit by another
rider (Jayson Uribe) in Turn Two at the start. “Some of the cornerworkers were dealing with me, because my
hip was hurting pretty badly,” said Wyman. “Some others were trying to get my
bike out of the gravel trap. It was still in gear, but instead of putting it in
neutral they put a strap through the rear wheel and tried dragging it out backwards.

“The bellypan was plowing through the gravel, making it
harder for them to move it. So the cornerworkers go and start ripping off the
bellypan and ripping at wires. I’ve got over six figures in this bike, and they
were ripping it apart.

“I went back over to them and put it in neutral and it rolled it right out. You would think that cornerworkers at an event like this
would be trained to know how to put a bike in neutral.

“And the worst part, I get over to the wall and I’m standing
next to a cornerworker and she’s waving a flag with one hand and recording
video with her phone in her other hand. Why is she shooting video with her
phone?” Wyman also said that an expensive aerodynamic wing off his crashed bike was never returned to him.

Roadracingworld.com asked MotoAmerica Chief Operating Officer
(COO) and KRAVE Partner Chuck Aksland about the complaints made by Herrin and Wyman. “It’s unfortunate what happened and it was passed on to the
circuit,” Aksland told Roadracingworld.com. “It’s up to them to deal with it
for the future.”

Aksland said organizing, training, and overseeing the
cornerworkers at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca is up to SCRAMP (Sports Car
Racing Association of the Monterey Peninsula), the host of the combined World Superbike and MotoAmerica event, just like
it is up to Circuit of The Americas for the combined MotoGP and MotoAmerica weekend at that track. At Laguna Seca, the
cornerworker duties were handled for SCRAMP by United States Auto Race Marshals (USARM).

Soon after the event, Roadracingworld.com also contacted Jan Kaufman, a member of
the USARM Board of Directors, and asked her about the Wyman and Herrin crashes and their related complaints. She did not get back to Roadracingworld.com as promised. but answered her phone when we called again today. 

“I talked to the Turn Marshal and several of the people that
were working at Turn Two,” Kaufman told Roadracingworld.com today. “When you talk to
the workers and look at the [closed-circuit] video, none of them ever saw [mishandling
of Wyman’s motorcycle], and every one of them said, ‘There’s no way we would
ever do anything like that.’ So if you look at the video you don’t see it.

“[Wyman] did shove one of the workers and was very hostile,
which we understand. He was in pain and his adrenaline was sky high, but everybody
I spoke to said the bike was handled properly, as it normally is.”

Wyman admitted to Roadracingworld.com that he shoved a cornerworker out of his way when he tried to get to his motorcycle to
put it in neutral and save it from further damage.

“On the Turn Six incident, where Josh Herrin crashed, when
he went down and they pulled [his bike] behind the wall, they did lay it down,”
said Kaufman. “They laid it down on the good side because there were concerns
with fluid leaking out of the bad side. That was the only reason they did that.
They didn’t drop it. They placed it on its side, and there’s [closed-circuit]
video of that, too.

“The people in Race Control, the officials from MotoAmerica
that are there with my folks during the race, every single time we have a crash
or an incident we have them play it back for us. We go back though it almost in
slow motion at times to review every single thing: Pre-crash, during the crash,
and post-crash, like clearing the track and loading it onto the [crash truck]
when they come to pick it up. And in both incidents, the officials that were in
Race Control during those incidents said that everything was handled properly.”

What about Wyman’s report of a cornerworker shooting
video with their mobile phone while waving a flag at his crash scene? And why wasn’t it caught during the review of video from each crash scene that Kaufman said standard USARM practice?

“That is 100% against policy,” said Kaufman. “Nobody knew
about that. We didn’t pick it up on any
cameras.

“We all look out for each other. The responders, the medical
staff, we all kind of look out for each other, and when we see someone doing
something they shouldn’t be doing, like using their video [phone], our folks
are usually the first to say, ‘Hey, put that phone away!’

“So if that happened and it was missed, shame on us. I can’t
verify if it did or did not. It shouldn’t happen. In every single training
session we have we say those things [mobile phones] do not come out anytime
bikes are on course. I don’t care if it’s the cool-down lap, those phones are
to be tucked away or are supposed to be tucked away.”

(Above) Another image of a cornerworker at Laguna Seca’s Corkscrew using a mobile phone while flagging during an incident involving MotoAmerica Supersport racer Braeden Ortt (left).

MotoAmerica Supersport racer Braeden Ortt didn’t complain about
how things were handled when he highsided in the Corkscrew during a session at
Laguna Seca, mainly because he was knocked unconscious and concussed when he
regained consciousness. If he had been aware of his surroundings, however, he
may have noticed a cornerworker waving a flag with one hand and shooting video
with their mobile phone with the other, which is clearly visible in MotoAmerica’s
video replay of the incident.

View the video here, and draw your own conclusions.