The Central Motorcycle Roadracing Association (CMRA) cancelled races Sunday, September 21 following a horrific accident involving one of the club’s top stars and another rider at MSR-Houston, in Angleton, Texas.
“There were several accidents and several people airlifted [to hospitals], but the big one was with Derek Wagnon and Guillermo Gonzalez,” said Marcus McBain, a former racer, former race team owner and the current Motorcycle Market Manager for JRi Shocks was present at the event and witnessed the incident in the 2.38-mile, 17-turn track’s final corner, which has no run-off room and a concrete wall on the outside edge of the racing surface. Soft barriers front a portion of that wall. “Derek was coming onto the front straight [on his Kawasaki ZX-10R]. He was on a flyer of a lap. He was using our shock, so I was paying attention to that.
“Then the rear end stepped out. He highsided [and] pretty much, bike goes into the wall [and] he goes into the wall. At that point, nobody could say for sure whether or not he was injured. I don’t think he was injured that badly because right now the only thing that is majorly wrong with him is his leg.”
According to McBain, Wagnon, the CMRA Overall Expert Championship point leader, had an eight-second on the rest of the field, but even that was not enough of a buffer to save him.
“As the next two or three riders came across, it looks like the first rider probably did see him,” said McBain. “As that first rider probably moved to the inside, the rider behind him probably thought ‘I’m going to go around him’ and gassed it, and there was Derek right there [in the track]. That was Guillermo [Gonzalez].
“He almost went straight over Derek. He tried to swerve [and] ended up going over his leg, which caused the damage to [Wagnon’s] leg. At that point, Guillermo crashed and ended up 500 feet down the track and was unconscious. It was a big freakin’ mess.”
Wagnon and Gonzalez were both airlifted to Memorial Hermann hospital in Houston, but not before Wagnon received critical aid from an unlikely source.
“We have a doctor who races, Joe Caruso,” said McBain. “He was in the race. He saw what happened. He immediately parked his bike and jumped over pit wall, immediately [cared for] Derek’s leg. Dr. Caruso said the artery [below the knee] was already severed at that point, but he did a makeshift tourniquet or something on it to control the bleeding. He did that within 60 seconds of the crash happening, and that’s what gave Derek a chance. I don’t think the EMTs would have known what to do so quickly. Caruso is a [vascular] surgeon.”
According to McBain, who was at the hospital until early Monday morning, Wagnon had successful surgery on his injured leg Sunday evening/Monday morning, but he did not know Gonzalez’s condition.
The remainder of the day’s race were cancelled, according to McBain.
A call from Roadracingworld.com to CMRA Race Director Walter Walker was not returned prior to post time.
Update: Roadracingworld.com initiated contact with eyewitness Marcus McBain after trying to reach our usual CMRA contact Nancy Selleck by e-mail and phone, and after attempting to contact CMRA Race Director Walter Walker by phone. All attempts to contact Selleck and Walker were unsuccessful and unanswered. Neither had responded to messages requesting a callback at the time the above news item was posted.
Another Update: Roadracing World has now been contacted by Nancy Selleck and Walter Walker, who were both at the hospital yesterday, as well as by CMRA President John Orchard. The facts of what happened at the track and what Roadracing World reported are not in dispute.