That is just bizarre. I’d heard that guns were more dangerous to their owners than to the people they are aimed against, but this is silly…

The receiver accidentally shot himself in the right thigh and spent Friday night in a hospital, and now is likely to face weapons charges.

At least nobody in F1 has shot himself yet.

However, if I was a team owner or sponsor, I would take a very different position. Driver’s are paid a lot of money to be in a car on race day 20 times a year. Obviously they work very hard every day to be at the level to race, but from a sponsor’s point of view, if you aren’t in the car on a Sunday, when the fans are watching, then you have lost 1/20th of your year’s investment. That’s a pretty big chunk to lose to a driver’s need to an adrenalin fix.

I have been against cycle races on open roads since I first came across one. These guys take insane risks. I regularly come across bike races on the roads around here and I have lost count of the number of times I have seen someone negotiating a roundabout head down and bum up oblivious to the traffic and only thinking about his time.

Anyone still remembers Montoya’s “tennis” injury ?

Oh yes! Mentioned in paragraph four of the post. Two races that injury cost him – silly boy.

Another good one is the case of Ben Roethlisberger, the talented young quarterback of the NFL’s Pittsbugrh Steelers. “Big Ben” was well-known for his love of motorcycles even before leading the Steelers to a Super Bowl Championship in just his second NFL season. However, a few months later in summer 2006, Ben was out riding without a helmet when he broadsided a car and wound up smashing his head off the winshield of the car. Had paramedics not sealed off an artery bleeding in his throat, he would have died within minutes, and he was also riding the motorcycle without a license to do so, and agaisnt the advice of team management.

I am happy to say that Big Ben returned the following season and suffered no aftereffects of his injury, and hopefully it will be the same with Webber. In my mind, the major point that needs to be considered is if the event is held in a safe location- and that could mean closing down the roads in the future. I don’t see anything wrong with Webber’s event, but hopefully he will be a bit more careful the next time around.

FWIW, i’d think it would be up to the driver to decide whether to participate in dangerous activities. After all, it’s their livelihood at stake, no? The best the team can do is write in the contract clauses for penalties and/or withholding salaries if a driver misses a race or test session due to an injury not related to F1.

Dangerous activities with no obvious benefit to the day job can be banned, though banning the use of lifts in Massa’s case may be counter-productive if he’s anywhere near as incident-prone as I am.

It does seem typical though, that of all the people that have competed in the Challenge over the years, the first one to get a serious injury would be the bloke who came up with the idea…

Of course when you have luck as bad as Webber does, it may have been prudent to remove the 0.00001% chance of running into someone…..

All I’m gonna say is… I’m pleased someone else said it and not me!

Get well soon Mark, best wishes from the BlogF1 community.

Of course when you have luck as bad as Webber does, it may have been prudent to remove the 0.00001% chance of running into someone…..

Also, it would be all very well for teams to say no extreme sports, but Massa can hurt himself sneezing in a lift. They have to stop worrying at some point.

I came so close to mentioning this incident in the post, but decided humour could wait until the comments. Thanks for bringing up Massa’s, ahem ‘extreme sports’ injury – maybe Ferrari should pay more attention to what he is doing rather than snowboarding and snowmobiling Raikkonen.

Also, it would be all very well for teams to say no extreme sports, but Massa can hurt himself sneezing in a lift. They have to stop worrying at some point.

Silly! Of course they should be able to compete in whatever they want, just for the fun of it.

they compete in potentially dangerous event between 17 – 19 times every year between March and November

Of course you guys are correct, but I doubt either of your jobs require you to be in optimum fitness all of the time. If Webber was an office worker, it wouldn’t matter if he had a broken leg – he could still hobble into work and function in his job normally (just about – I still went to work earlier in the year with a broken wrist).

I agree that you can’t tame the beast, and even the driver’s training can be hazardous. But there should be a limit if their livelihood depends on them being able to compete as athletes 10 or 11 months out of the 12.

what I would ask is how was the event organized that there was a car and Webber at the same time at the same place and moving in different directions?

Good question. The event was being held on public roads, but they should have stopped traffic (which couldn’t have been that much of an inconvenience) while the cyclists passed through. Although it could have been a support vehicle, which seem to hit competing cyclists all the time in the Tour De France.

on the other hand, how many people get hit by car every day performing relatively safe act of going to work for example

what I would ask is how was the event organized that there was a car and Webber at the same time at the sample place and moving in different directions ?

They are superb athletes and adrenalin junkies, you can only keep the beast caged for so long.

And I’m still thinking Webber is laughing his head off of the Jenson Button’s Challenge on Lewis Hamilton (TM).