Marcel Irnie discovers he has No Front Brakes, coming off the back-straight at Pacific Raceway. Kent WA. Marcel skids the rear tire to avoid a head on collision with rider in-front, causing a two bike 100mph motorcycle high-side into a rock-gravel trap.
All riders involved walked away from the accident. Marcel broke his hand, and Ryan injured his shoulder. Full Documentary available here: http://youtu.be/IwtGXJXMhLg
WMRRA Rd 1. April 3, 2011. Race: 600 superbike
Track Conditions: cold, wet patches, slight rain.
Cause of accident: Calipar brakepad pin fell out, followed by one brake pad.
WMRRA April 3rd, 2011
[ame=“http://vimeo.com/22136551”]Irnieracing.com Brake Failure 100mph Crash. WMRRA April 3rd, 2011 on Vimeo[/ame]
Comment from rider Marcel Irnie:
On the Tokico calipars for many bikes, there are two brake pad pins that have sunken allen head bolts, that can’t be safety wired. If one pin looses and falls out, the bottom two or top two pads can fall out. Following my disaster, some clubs took notice and require safety wire or shoe glue. I purchased drilled external head brake pad pins from Pro-Bolt to solve the issue.
oh sh**
Brake failure must be one of the scariest experiences ever on a bike. I still remember watching the video of Ron Hicks (spelling) crash when his brakes failed a few years ago at a trackday.
I can’t imagine the feeling of such hopelessness. Even though it was literally just seconds, I’d probably piss myself twice over.
Quite a scary situation. Good thing they all made it out relatively unhurt.
here’s the Ron Hix crash. he had a lot more “oh shit” time before he went down. scary as hell!
skip to 3:45
[ame=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEf2NaAMnCc”]Ron Hix Crash Blackhawk Farms Crash - NO BRAKES turn one - YouTube[/ame]
:rofl After watching the vid I posted, I immediately check the caliper assembly on the service manual for my sv and see if this is something that can happen to me.
I read the description but it’s a bit confusing. Each pad has 2 pins that go through it, so even if you lose one pin the pad should still be held in by the second pin (in a regular 2-pad caliper).
So I don’t understand how he lost his pads? Unless he had a 4-pad caliper, and therefore he would’ve lost 2 of the pads, but then wouldn’t he have still been able to stop using just the other 2 pads?
But then I guess what would happen is the pistons behind the pads that fell out would push out into the rotor, and therefore he wouldn’t get any pressure at the lever until he pumped it a few times.