Jim's Big Cra$h

I have received many inquiries asking why I haven't added more ride information, stories, images and other stuff to surf over lately. Well, one reason is I have this OLDER brother who thinks he can ride anything with a motor wide open like a maniac without consequence. You know the type; someone who has hardly ever thrown their leg over any ATV who thinks it takes as much skill as a lawnmower to control.

Here's my naked 400EX ready for new parts

Well, he decided to ride with me at New Vienna MX Park on my nice and shiny Honda 400EX to show me how easy quads are to ride. He was doing pretty good and behaved himself well until about an hour into the riding when decided to blister around the service road that borders the back MX practice track WFO without even knowing the curves or trail layout.

Here's the other side shot of my naked quad

It's hard to tell in these low-res images but the steering stem has been bent.

I tried to get over to where he was but it was too late. All I saw was a cloud of dust and my 400EX flipping in the sky. He had misjudged the approaching corner's sharpness and while trying to toss it sideways to make the curve he clipped a hay bail and it tossed him skywards. When the dust had settled my 400EX was about 50 feet away on it's backside still running and my brother was knocked out cold.

I had a local rider who stopped to help hold his head still and went to have the New Vienna workers call an ambulance and hopped in my truck to get back to my brother in something that we could haul him out with. Once I got back to the crash site he was staggering around wondering who and where he was.

One of the track workers flipped my quad over and rode it back to the main building and I drove my brother there to wait for the ambulance to pick him up and take him to the hospital. He had no clue what was going on and had suffered a severe concussion. Later we found out he had broken his shoulder in four-places, broken two or three ribs and was very bruised from the crash. He didn't regain his memory until the following evening and it took a week before he even remembered leaving that day for the ride.

The 400EX looked a bit rough but got away from the crash with a bent steering stem, bent tie rods, crushed front rim and a few cracks in the plastic. Easy to fix compared to my brother's injuries. He will have a year of recovery before he can even consider riding again and it's not gonna be on my 400EX this time. I am thinking of getting one of those 50cc quads with a restrictor plate and maybe I'll let him ride again.