Press Release | October 11, 2009
The following is from Barber Motorsports Park…Alan Cathcart crashed during a testing session Thursday (Oct. 8) at Barber Motorsports Park outside of Birmingham, Alabama. The crash resulted in three fractured ribs, one cracked vertebrae, a broken right foot and the top of his left thumb being ground down. Cathcart is currently in the University of Alabama (UAB) Hospital in Birmingham.Cathcart was on hand for this weekend’s Barber Vintage Festival presented by Michelin to ride Danny Eslick’s Daytona Sportbike Championship winning Buell 1125R. On Thursday Buell asked Cathcart to test a couple of its prototype Buell 1125RR Superbikes to give them feedback.”Buell wanted me to give them my thoughts on their prototype and specifically how it compares to the Ducati and KTM Superbikes I’ve ridden that are campaigned in the national-level Superbikes Series in Europe,” Cathcart said Friday. “Testing was going along just fine and the lap times were coming down into a very good range, when on the last lap of the last session I ran out to the curbing coming onto the front straight and the rear tire spun up. When it came on the tarmac again it hooked up rather violently and spit me off.”I was able to get enough laps to know that Buell’s 1125RR is quite good and compares favorably to the Superbikes raced in national-level series in Europe. Obviously I would have liked it better with traction control,” Cathcart said with a grin.”Buell is very popular in Europe and I believe some team will decide to race the 1125RR, perhaps in the IDM Series in Germany as soon as next year. The bike is very powerful and torquey.”Cathcart is perhaps the best known motorcycle journalist in the world. He received the prestigious Journalist of the Year Award for 2008 from the Guild of Motoring Writers.”They found two fractured vertebrae, but just like Nori Haga this summer, they discovered one of the fractures was actually an old injury,” Cathcart explained. “The injury to my foot is like David Beckham’s, a broken metatarsal, an injury common in soccer.”In spite of his injuries Cathcart has not lost his trademark sense of humor.”Having made a tour of hospitals around the world on five different continents, I can say the UAB Hospital rates a five star,” he quipped. “Unfortunately I would have to give the food only a three-star rating.”Cathcart went on to say doctors told him he would be fine in about six weeks, his ribs are the most painful at the moment and he hopes to be out of the hospital by Sunday, if not sooner.
