was it a groundhog?

[Burt Munro]

Shawn Conrad at Road America.  Cracked his helmet.

[Simon]

One of the world superbike guy's hit a seagull at Phillip Island a few years ago doing well over 150. Didn't knock him off but I think it broke his shoulder.

[Hollywood]

i would imagine with the bike straight up and down i'd be fine, but mid-turn might be a different story.

....but with your Pirreli tires, you could possibly lose traction in T1. BRIDGESTONES, however, would probably absorb the groundhog and disperse it through the next few turns.

You should think about running 'stones, Bobby. I fear no groundhogs..........

[steelcityracer]

Yep, most likely it was a ground hog!  There have been SEVERAL calls this year regarding ground hogs (and deer).  A couple weekends ago we had a ground hog fatality on the front straight, amazingly no one went down and the ground hog didn't even leave debris on the track after getting hit.  This past weekend, there was another ground hog fatality in turn 9, again, no debris left on track and no rider down!!

I actually remember seeing a small mamal carcas on the edge of the track during the warm up lap of one of my races.  I tried to point it out to the cornerworkers.

[racer911]

 .  you are a funny man, cooke.  i was a little concerned about it, but i beat my best lap time on saturday with that medium front.  i guess it just goes to show you that at our pace the grip will still be there with a soft or a medium compound.

now if you switch to pirellis, you will win races.  i guarantee it.  it's those stones that are holding you back.  and then i'll be saying "chris cooke!!!!!!!" as i hold up my fist.

[Hollywood]

demmit, man. is that all i have to do? when then obviously, the choice is clear!

wait till you see the shirts we are having made for VIR.............you are going to lose it to the point that you may not be able to compete at the level of which to beat me. And we are making lots of them. Bumper stickers, too.

[racer911]

i don't know if i want to know.  but now you have me curious.  what is it going to say?

[hood616]

It was definitely a groundhog and I was glad you didn't hit it because I was about 50 yards behind you.

[Hollywood]

Bro, you even have to ASK what it's going to say? It'll be funny, I know that. One of the graphic design guys that was there offered to sketch one out and WALA.

Free to the general public to help build my army, for you- $20. Proceeds to help with expensive Pirreli tire purchases in future.

[ion]

pffft! Bridgestones are useless for off-track excursions, but great for taking you off track... I'm thinking that a groundhog would make them spontaneously combust!

[TheHiriser]

It's not unusual to have ground hog fatalities at Summit. I've yet to see anyone go down after hitting one though.

Simon was actually the one that kicked, yes I said kicked the dead ground hog off the front straight at Summit Point a few weeks back. 

I came out of the Control Tower to smoke and see these two women shaking their arms and hands in the air and screeching, "Oh No, Look out."  I immediately think some kid fell down near the starters bridge and run over only to see the aforementioned groundhog actually facing the oncoming racers.  It dodges left, ZOOOOM, racer goes by.  It dodges right, ZOOOOM, another racer goes by.  I looked up, here comes three bikes.  I look back to the groundhog.  He almost seemed to actually squat lower and I'm thinking "Will he make it?"  Seconds later I had my answer.  He got hit about 10 times while I was watching.  Didn't splatter at all amazingly. 

Another time in Turn One I saw a turkey actually go running towards a bike, take flight and going only inches over the racers helmet. 

[GSXR RACER MIKE]

I have onboard video of me almost getting hit by a Blue Jay right in the helmet in turn 5 at Blackhawk Farms (had to duck down to avoid it), I almost hit a chipmunk while leaned over in turn 6A, and I once had to stop on hot-pit lane and yell back to the 'pit-out' worker as we were released for our practice session because a pretty decent size turtle was on a mission out onto the front straight at BFR as well.

Probably the scariest for me was the year they put up all the Indy car fencing at Road America and a deer was trapped out on the track in the Kettle Bottoms just after 11A on the left side of the track, as I came thru there the deer crossed right in front of me from the blind area to your left and then started running toward Canada Corner. That was just freaky!