Racer Crashes BMW HP4 Race At 161 MPH, Lives To Tell The Tale

We all know that professional motorcycle racers are basically superhumans, right? In case you needed proof, racer Luca Salvadori is here to help. In his regular YouTube series “A Racing Story,” he takes fans behind the scenes as he and his team complete the 2019 Italian National Trophy season. In this particular video he just posted, we all get to gape in horror as he completely pulverizes his BMW HP4 Race while doing a qualifying lap at Misano. 

Superhumans, I Tell Ya:

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The video above starts with onboard footage of the crash at 260km/h (or around 161 mph). The footage itself is deceptive. You can tell that Salvadori tumbles and slides, but then you’re left in suspense about the fate of the bike. If you watch a lot of modern racing, chances are great you’ve seen a bunch of crashes by now where the rider walks away, and the bike is banged up a bit—but overall, it’s not that bad.

That’s, uh, that’s not the case here. According to Salvadori, his first qualifying lap went well, and he felt good about starting his fast lap. Unfortunately, he misjudged corner entry speed and overcooked it, went up on the curb, and taught non-Italian-speakers the very fun word “polverizzatta” with this handy visual.

Usually, if you see a bike smashed up as badly as this poor HP4 Race was, the rider is in much worse shape. Thankfully, Salvadori managed to walk away with just some scrapes, bruises, and a puncture wound in his arm that required about three stitches in total. He knows how lucky he is to have come away relatively unscathed at that speed, and points that out in the video.

As Salvadori also explains, if this was MotoGP, there would be a spare bike for him to hop onto. Rules are different in this series, though—and similar to how they are in WSBK, where Salvadori has also raced. In order to keep costs down, teams don’t have spare bikes—but they can have spare pieces to make up a new bike, if they’re properly assembled. That’s exactly what Salvadori’s team decides to do.

Is it another HP4 Race? Nope. Since Salvadori smashed that poor HP4 Race to bits, his team instead had to quickly assemble an S1000RR—which, to you and me, might sound just fine, but is kind of a step down if you came from an HP4 Race. 

The resulting S1000RR isn’t revealed in this video, but Salvadori promises to break down the crash completely and also show the S1000RR in his upcoming videos, so subscribe to his YouTube channel if you want to follow this story. 

Source: YouTube