Well as promised in Part 1 of this story, we continue to monitor the situation with Doug Horne and its time for an update.

As many of you may know by now Doug Horne was involved in a wreck at the AHDRA race in Numidia, PA on May 23rd while riding his Top Fuel bike in round two of eliminations. Luckily he only sustained injuries to his right hand/thumb and left shoulder.

Now what most don’t know is what happened to cause the wreck. Well we started to dig into the incident to get some answers and here is what we found.

A very reliable eye witness told us exactly what he saw. From what our eye witness tells us, it appeared that Horne simply sat up a little to much too soon past the end of the quarter mile and the wind got the better of him. In other words he was blown off the bike.

How would this happen you say? Well let me put this into perspective. When you are traveling at over 200 mph and you have very little fairing to protect you from that wind, a rider needs to be very cautious on how and when they sit up. One mistake and the wind will more than likely get the better of you every time.

Our eye witness also went into detail of the progression of just how Horne was blown off the bike. First his hand was caught by the wind, followed by his arm which then threw him back and up, until hitting his upper torso throwing his head back and finally catching his helmet from under his chin to cause his separation from the bike.

Now we also have had sources inform us that there has been some finger pointing as to who or what other mitigating circumstances might be to blame. Most commonly that the AHDRA was at fault for not making the decision to shorten the fuel bikes to an 1/8 mile.

Well here is my opinion on that one.
Look as any rider on a first time track, you know from your first pass what kind of shutdown and track you are dealing with. In addition as with most AHDRA races there is always a test and tune opportunity on Friday night to get to know the track and dial in your bike. You then have three rounds of qualifying on Saturday all before eliminations on Sunday.

So as a professional rider who has had plenty of experience and understanding of just what it takes to safely bring your bike to a stop. The time to speak up and voice your opinion about any and all safety concerns would definitely be before Sunday’s eliminations.

Pointing fingers, playing the blame game, or writing a letter is just ridiculous and absurd. Why? because the moment you went out for eliminations, staged that bike and left the line, you made a conscience decision to accept any and all inherent risk.

This is drag racing people, it comes with inherent risk.
Ultimately it is your responsibility as a competitor to decided wether or not you feel safe enough to continue.

So whats next for Doug Horne now?

Well we were told that the Horne camp stated that they will be sidelined for a few months but would be back for the US Nationals in Indy.

So I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Hopefully Doug Horne comes back and makes a good showing to get things back on track. Heck if he does, he may still even get an opportunity to win his first Wally. Just like his old Destroyer teammate (LE Tonglet) recently did at Route 66.

Time will tell but for now we will just continue to keep our eye on the situation.

Sammy D
Assoc Editor MS&S