2011-01-15 Sat - Redbull Minidrome

Andy, as a skilled rider, with many hours practice on the minidrome, I'm sure you could have run 49 x 13 and it would have been fine (although you would have been overgeared even on a regulation 250m track).

You say that the likelihood was that most people would fall into the track rather than out of it, but there was always a chance that people would go up too high on the banking, for a variety of reasons. While this was much less likely (did 2 out of 105 people do it?), the consequences of someone doing this are potentially much worse than the alternative.

Just because an instructional video says to stay on the red line doesn't mean that A) people will have watched the video, B) that people will be able to physically follow the red line, and C) feel confident enough to follow the red line.

My point is, don't forget that other riders aren't as good as you, and if there is slim possibility for something to go wrong, it could well happen. Padding round the banking would be good (or just a track fence), and also the booth with the laptops should have been further away. And maybe the lapboard could have been suspended from the ceiling, rather that on a stand in the centre.

/killjoyhealthandsafetynazi

I thought it was a fun event by the way

Whilst testing we had a bigger fear of falling out of the track than in. We did not have the option of landing on mats instead we had circular saws, metal beams and spare pieces of wood to fall on. Which probably made us learn all the more quicker.

I suppose they should have made the choice of not having mats around the edge at all. It might have scared people enough to know not to fall out.

All competitors had to sign a disclaimer and rode at their own risk.

I would of assumed that if you had taken enough interest in signing up to race on the mini drome, that you also would have taken enough interest to see what it was like before hand. Either via a video or having a look before you were physically sitting on the track with your bike.
Just assessing the situation and where if any where you did not want to fall off... (where there are no pads)

In a perfect world yes all of those suggestions would have helped... but there would still be the same percentage of people crashing. maybe even more, because they would have felt safe enough to go as fast as they possibly could.

I think it was a perfect balance and was just right!

If it was a health and safety risk at all, it would not have happened.