'They don't understand the mindset of what we do. It is not a job or a hobby. It is a life'

Two deaths a fortnight ago have failed to dispel the turbocharged allure of the motorsport for riders, writes Rory Smith from Donington Park

- Rory Smith

The noise is constant and all-encompassing and, more than anything else, loud. Deafeningly, ear-splittingly loud. So loud that it feels, initially, almost violent: a discordant orchestra of hammering and ratcheting and engines. Engines growling and snarling and screaming, a sound so piercing it seems to split the sky.

The effect is piercing, percussive, right up until the point that it is not. The noise never abates, never dwindles, but after a while it fades into the background, drifts to the edge of consciousness. It is the difference between hearing and listening. Only when it stops, in those lacunae of quiet, do you realise quite how loud it was. The silence is somehow more arresting than the noise.

Death is something we prefer to swaddle in euphemism. The matter-of-fact words can feel too harsh, too cold, too brutal. It is a subject that we struggle to look in the eye.

Motorcycle racing, in that sense, is no different. Not quite two weeks ago, at the opening event of the British Superbike season at Oulton Park in Cheshire, two riders were killed in what the sport refers to as a “chain reaction” crash.

As the field of racers approached the first corner on the first lap of the circuit, one of their number wobbled - by just a fraction - and fell. One brought down another, who brought down another in turn. In all, 11 bikes were involved.

Most of the riders walked away with minor injuries. Tom Tunstall suffered back and abdominal injuries, including a broken bone in his neck. He remains in hospital. But two, Owen Jenner, a 21-year-old from Crowborough, East Sussex, and Shane Richardson, a 29-year-old New Zealander, did not survive.