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This BMW S1000RR Rider Has a Brush with Eternity

Do you remember what they used to say about Ayrton Senna and his cornering technique? That he has some sort of magic powers that allowed him to pass through the guardrails in the corners of certain circuits, such as the one in Monaco.
There might not be a next time 1 photo
Photo: Facebook capture
I am not exactly the guy to believe in actual magic, but I have watched Senna race and he was indeed a wizard. How come he managed to stay safe and not crash violently into the obstacles on the inside route around the bends is still a thing of mystery, but it looks like some fellows are trying to replicate his style using motorcycles.

For example, take this chap who is at the helm of a BMW S1000RR, and who seemingly wants to feel that "closer to the hedge" vibe riders in the Isle of Man TT are famous for.

However, those guys are hard to imitate, simply because they do this for a living and not occasionally, when they want to look cool. They don't need to film their ride because they're not riding at 260 km/h (160 mph) millimeters away from stone walls to prove anything. This comes with their job, and, in the TT, feet per second are just as important as milliseconds in MotoGP.

Luckily, it's the mirror and the wallet that suffer

Now, this fellow appears to be doing somewhere between 90 and 100 mph (145-160 km/h). If you play the video in HD, you can spot a 9 on his speedo, and judging by how fast things pass, I'd say there's mph there and not km/h.

It's unclear what the guy is doing, because he appears to intend to cut the shortest track around a corner, but the bend in the road is not at all sharp, as to command such an approach.

I'd rather go with the scenario that he overreacted a bit and got unnecessarily close to the guardrail. Thankfully, he was able to stop from "drifting" into it more, so that only his right mirror was destroyed.

Several inches more and the outcome would have been gruesome, most likely. Hope it's "lesson well learned" this time, because there might not be a next time...

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