Joint statement from ACU Events and the Organising Club regarding round one of the Maxxis ACU British Motocross Championship last Sunday.
Firstly, we would wish all three riders who sustained injuries at the event on Sunday a full and speedy recovery. Obviously, the most high profile injury was that of Mel Pocock and there are some facts that the Club would wish to make clear.
* The Medical Cover at the event was above the minimum requirement for an ACU International event and there were TWO Paramedics (plus Medical Centre, two Ambulances and appropriate staff) in attendance from 8.15am onwards.
* The Club is not in a position to make medical comments but we have been told that Mel was not administered certain drugs at the circuit for medical reasons which include the possibility that if an immediate operation was needed upon arrival at the hospital this would have been counter-productive.
* The Club fully stand by the expertise of the Medical Team on hand and it is noted that even when a frontline County Ambulance Team arrived at the circuit they still remained in situ and stabilised the situation before transportation to hospital.
* As Mel and others have posted comments on Social Media sites, the Club feels it would not be appropriate to make any further comment on this incident. The Club have made daily enquiries into his progress since the injury.
The club also notes some other comments regarding the event, especially with reference to riders and teams who arrived at the circuit on Saturday without passes to gain entry and were given the choice of waiting for the appropriate passes to arrive from their Team Manager or pay the normal admission fee. The Club feel that this was a reasonable solution given that this is an age old problem which SOME teams have misused in the past.
The Club accept that this may not have been an ideal venue for the event (especially after the deluge of rain which fell on Friday) with the limited paddock parking and accept full responsibility for this and apologise to some riders whose parking area was not up to standard. However, there were no vehicles needing to be towed in or out of the venue and with 20mm of rain on Friday there are very few circuits in the UK where the event would not have been cancelled.
The ACU have set a date of Wednesday 25th March for an Enquiry into the whole of this event and a further statement will be issued regarding this in due course.
Clerk of the Course, Brian Higgins concludes by saying that a team of workers were on site from the Tuesday onwards, working from 7am till dusk every day and whilst he is happy to shoulder responsibility and accept constructive criticism himself, it does have a counter effect on club members who worked so hard to ensure the event ran.