Dominic Schmitter was hoping for a successful debut at the Aragón circuit in Spain, but the first day didn’t go as planned. The Swiss rider from the Hess Racing Team was knocked off his bike by a strong gust of wind. Schmitter was uninjured, but his Yamaha sustained significant damage, with the exception of the frame.
“I wanted to ease back into things after the winter break and felt really comfortable on the bike,” says the 26-year-old, who is competing in the IDM Superbike 1000 for another year and is preparing for the season in Spain. “There was an extremely strong headwind at the end of the home stretch. I wanted to enter the following corner and lean the Yamaha from left to right. I didn’t even get that far. I wasn’t even leaning yet when the gust hit from the side. I couldn’t save it and crashed.” The damage to the bike is considerable. Afterward, everyone on the team was wiser. “It would have been better not to ride today,” said Schmitter, “if it gets this stormy again, we won’t take the risk.” The weather forecast had predicted wind gusts of up to 90 km/h.
Schmitter didn’t get a single scratch in his first fall in a year and a half. “I have a new suit from Mithos. The airbag didn’t deploy, but I landed as if I were jumping onto a bed,” he said, turning this way and that.
The ambitious rider from eastern Switzerland is taking it in stride that he is now racing on a replacement bike that isn’t set up for him and, as the second-fastest rider in Aragón at the moment, is a second and a half behind IDM Superbike 1000 runner-up Ilya Mikhalchik, who is also competing here. “Ilya came here straight from the Endurance World Championship practice at Le Mans, and I’m just getting my first few laps in.”