Injury ends Rattray's title hopes
Injuries from a crash this weekend have ended South African Tyla Rattray's hopes of winning the AMA Supercross championship this year.
Rattray was leading the championship earlier this month but concussion and a spinal injury will keep him out of the saddle for at least a
month.
"He's broken his leg, I think."
The year was 1999, and we were on our way to where Tyla Rattray was sitting up on the track, clutching his lower leg. The prophetic words
were uttered by his mechanic, trainer, mentor and (later to be) stepfather Wayne, before we had even reached the hapless rider.
"How can you say that from here?" I asked.
"Because he hasn't got up yet," came the reply.
This dry remark was uttered matter-of-factly, without drama. As it turned out, Wayne was right, and what your reporter learned that day
was that this phrase pretty much sums up Rattray's approach to racing. Throughout his career he has suffered some mighty dirt-bike-powered
body slams, but time and again he proved that nothing short of the proverbial steam train coming the opposite direction could prevent him
from lining up at the start gate. He once famously literally spilt tears and had to be helped into his race jersey by his mom after
dislocating his shoulder a few days before a race, yet gritted it out on the track to win the GP of Belgium at Neeroeteren.
The South African rider is made of stout stuff. When he went down hard during the qualifying race at round 4 of the AMA Supercross
championship series and lay dead still, therefore, a hush descended over the Overstock Stadium in Oakland. Its cyber world immediately went
ablaze, with messages firing off in all directions that the popular Kawasaki rider was seriously injured. Mystifyingly, officials allowed
the race to continue around the stricken rider, and it was only at the conclusion of the qualifying race that the Asterisk medical crew
could cart Rattray off on a body board.
For an agonising few hours, there was precious little in the form of news emerging, but finally news broke through that, thankfully, he
was relatively OK, compared to the visions that the sight of the crash might have raised in the mind. He had sustained a severe concussion
and a small fracture of the C7 vertebrae, in itself nothing to be slighted, but a relief nonetheless after a crash that could have turned
out much worse.
Rattray was well enough to fly home on Sunday, and will undergo another thorough examination on Monday. The expectations are that he will
be out of action for some four to six weeks, which draws a definite line under his Supercross championship challenge for 2012. Due to the
fact that he was (literally) counted out for this event, he has dropped to fifth in the AMA Supercross standings.