Kurt Caselli.......... R.I.P.

[xr-nut]

Died at the Baja 1000 yesterday. Ride on in the big blue brother...........

[troy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMF3GL455x0

I have to admit, I barely follow motosports (or any sports for that matter), so I did not know who Kurt Caselli was. I just watched this video showcasing some of his riding and sponsorship with KTM---seemed like a great guy. The report I read blamed a booby-trap on the course. I've read about how the locals build traps for the racers. Wow. How many volunteers would it take to eyeball the entire 1.000 mile course. 4,000 would be one every 1/4 mile.

[gagnaou]

Definitely a sad day... Thoughts and prayers go out to his family and all the ones who loved him.

Seems like pretty regularly some of the "heroes" of the sport end up in those situations. Would be even more sad if the booby trap story is confirmed...

[Rusty Jug]

Nice video, that's hard to believe I hope that is not true about the booby trap

[gagnaou]

Nice video, that's hard to believe I hope that is not true about the booby trap

No booby trap according to the Baja thread on ADVrider

[HanesAnizer]

RIP....what an amazing rider. Big loss to the motorcycle community

[Harvey Mushman]

News is starting to come out that Caselli may have hit an animal on the course, still a terrible thing to happen. There is a number of vids on youtube showing booby traps the locals set up to cause crashes. One shows a buggy hitting one and flipping 3x. When it came to rest, much of the crowd ran to the wreck and looted parts off the car. They racers say if you see a crowd of locals especially in a desolate area, you better slow down as there may be a trap coming up.
RIP KC.

[xr-nut]

http://www.ktm.com/news-events/news/all ... ogE8Pmkq8X

KTM official release saying accident was due to an animal collision. Also, Ricky Brabec claims he was the first to find Kurt and that there were no people around, no apparent traps and it was also still daylight.

I was struggling with the question of why someone would race there with the widely known knowledge that the locals are doing this. Kurt's death, if a result of a local's made "booby trap", would be far worse a tragedy to me. But, if Kurt died doing exactly what he loved to do, died on his own terms with the bike under him, that to me is far better. I can wrap my brain around that.

[phil denk]

This week's Cycle News has a great tribute to Kurt..................