Video: Lucky rider escapes 105mph collision at Nurburgring

A rider had a lucky escape while riding while riding the Nurburgring when he collided with a car at 105mph.

David Monaghan and a bunch of friends had travelled to Germany for their annual pilgrimage to the 14 mile long Nordschleife circuit, and had already completed three laps that afternoon before the accident occurred.

David, riding his BMW S1000RR, had caught up with a group of slower moving cars at the Karussell and had initiated an overtake when the driver of the car he was trying to pass also tried an overtake. David clipped the car and was sent onto the grass and into the gravel at over 100mph. Skip to 7 minutes 25 seconds to see the accident.

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David somehow managed to stay on, crossed the track and ended up on the grass at the opposite side of the track before rejoining the track and taking things a little slower.

Thundersport GB racer David recounted the story for us: “I rarely pass on a corner at the ‘Ring so I had held back behind the first car around the Karussell and passed on the exit once he had moved to the right to let me by. The orange Porsche was in front of me overtaking the Seat so from my point of view I had a clear run through. In hindsight this was my biggest safety mistake. I didn’t see that the Seat was being held up by the slow car in front of him and was impatient to get out. 

“The Seat gave one flash of his indicator at the same time as he started to pull out before realising the Porsche was already passing. In the split second this was happening I made the wrong decision to continue passing as I thought the Seat driver had become aware of passing traffic. 

“As I passed him the Seat pulled out and knocked me off the track. I knew not to pull the front brake on the grass and ended up in the drainage gravel riding the bottom of the barrier at 100mph. All I could think was that at some point the front would fold and I needed to try and hold it to scrub as much speed off as possible before the inevitable. Somehow I managed to keep it upright until it pinged me off towards the track again. The curbing at that point is massive so I got launched onto the track at a fair speed but managed to get the brakes on for a moment on the tarmac before reaching the other side.

“I was still going at a fair pace and the nose was down from braking so I had to risk putting a little bit of power on to bring it up and get some control. I managed to turn it enough to just hit it with my knee and then get full control of the bike back, if not my heart rate.

“Once I’d got back the marshals came over looking for me as the police would need a statement. I explained that the orange Porsche had just passed and I felt the line was clear for myself as well and the Seat had pulled out on me without looking. The driver refused to admit any blame or say sorry as he wanted to go through insurance. Luckily another car was just behind me and they had separately given a statement saying exactly the same thing to the police. In future I’ll be a lot more wary when following a passing car that the one being passed may not be able to see me on a bike.”

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