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Classic YouTube: Chad Reed’s Flight At The 2011 Spring Creek Nationals in Millville


Classic YouTube: Chad Reed’s Flight At The 2011 Spring Creek Nationals in Millville

I love dirt bikes. I have great respect for dirt bikes, because most of my early teenage years I spent lots of free time trying to kill myself on dirt bikes. Even the best riders can tell you that there’s a point where you realize that the best thing you can do when the entire situation goes south is to get the hell away from the bike…whatever injuries you have will not be compounded by a couple hundred pounds of motorcycle. I ignored that rule once, when the throttle stuck on a Yamaha, and I got drug through blackberry bushes at good speed in 4th gear before getting scraped off the side by a Douglas fir. I don’t remember much of that weekend, and it was the catalyst that ended any thought I may have had about riding professionally.

Chad Reed’s 2011 season was going strong as he went into the Spring Creek Nationals, and during this race he was running up front and looking very strong. Then came the run to the big jump…coming out of a right-hander, the Honda CRF450R gets loose and Reed highsides and launches into the air, with most estimates putting his altitude at the farther end of 50 feet above ground level. And of course, what goes up must come down, and Reed comes down hard, landing on the grass slope of the jump before coming to rest at the bottom. It’s cringeworthy and you look at the landing you wonder not if he’s injured, but just how badly he’s injured. The answer: He isn’t. He takes a second to make sure everything is in one piece, then hops on the severely battered Honda, boots the hell out of the kickstarter, and takes off around the track to finish the race.


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