Was Bubba’s altercation with Jason Thomas reckless endangerment?
Was Bubba’s altercation with Jason Thomas reckless endangerment?
Swizcore
Ah yes the can of worms that is every crash involving James Stewart and any other rider in traffic. The bottom line(no not the show)is JT, the crashee, says no foul and that’s what matters. From my point of view, well, I look back at other incidents involving spectacular Bubba crashes while coming through the pack which result in competitors downed and say, nope still not reckless. Sure in the past Bubba has collected some helmets in similar fashion but in this instance it was merely a matter of JT clipping a front wheel on a simple double and James being committed to the same line. JT’s thought process was the same as James’, “throttle, skip, hop, continue”. Both of their plans were thwarted with “continue” being replaced by “crash”. The track is the one portraying reckless characteristics in this scenario.
Matthes
Well as we’ve written many times in this column, sometimes you have to take a side that you don’t believe in and argue that point. So, despite me going on the record a few times and saying that you can’t blame Stewie for the crash, I will now, in the spirit of me being on the debate team in grade seven (yes, I’m serious) will tackle this.
What James should’ve known was that he was one of only three or four dudes tripling onto that tabletop section and therefore proceed with caution when coming up on the slower riders. That fact alone should have come into his mind, but then also the fact that there was not one, but two riders in front of him should have caused him to pause a bit before pushing the launch button. The third fact is that the riders in front of him were Jason Thomas and Mike Alessi, two riders not exactly known for their aerial antics. James could have done the section with a bounce onto the table and skip off onto the next table and still blown by both dudes. It wasn’t the smartest racing move one could have done, that’s for sure.
Swizcore
I see your JT$ non-jumper mention and raise you a grizzly veteran of the sport who doesn’t attempt something he’s not sure he’ll pull off. Bubba entered the corner weighing the options, Terminator HUD style, quickly realizing a charging JT$ is the safer bet over the highly erratic (this season) Mike Alessi. He chooses the JT$ line and had no option when JT shorts the table. The rest is history. James has made questionable moves in the past while coming through the pack but this one wasn’t one of them.
Matthes
You’re clearly not getting it Swiz. James Stewart hit one of the sport’s most beloved figures and took him out bad. Maybe for the year and I’m mad about that. So therefore, it’s Stewie’s fault. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Even though I don’t think it was really Stewie’s fault, I have to have something to be mad at and that’s it.
What do you guys think?
