It was heartbreaking to hear of the deaths of Bernat Martinez and Dani Rivas at Laguna Seca on Sunday. My thoughts go to their families and friends.

From what I’ve been able to gather from those on the scene, it was one of those starting line crashes where a bike loses power early and following riders under the bubble accelerating rapidly hit the nearly stopped or slowing rider setting up a chain reaction.

It’s one of the scariest crashes in racing and the results are often catastrophic. One harkens back to Scott Russell being hit from behind on the line at Daytona, or the other horrific multi-rider pileup at Laguna Seca in a World Superbike event in 1998 https://youtu.be/EnDOGr_0Iq8 at nearly the identical spot.

I did not know either of the riders well. My fondest memory of Bernat was of trying to communicate with him after his surprising fourth-place Superbike finish at New Jersey Motorsports Park last year. Thanks to my excellent American public school education, I couldn’t understand Bernat’s Spanish. A kind young woman with him knew a tiny bit of English and I was trying to ask my questions through her. She could get the questions out, but could not interpret to English his answers. Finally I ask her I she could ask the questions then I would get his answers interpreted later. Thanks to an understanding Martin Cardenas, who listened to my recording, I was able to find out what Bernat said a few minutes earlier.

Both Bernat and Dani had plenty of international experience, and I think they saw America as an opportunity to showcase their riding and perhaps get to a paying ride quicker than they could in Europe. Dani had a handful of races under his belt in Moto2. He scored a solid 13^th-place finish at Moto2 race in Valencia in 2012. Bernat was well traveled journeyman and raced just about every form of motorcycling leading up to coming to America. He raced CEV in his native Spain, was a leading Supermoto racer and had road raced everything from 125cc GP bikes to Superbikes and everything in between.

AMA Pro Racing tried implementing rolling starts a few years ago and it didn’t go over well. Standing starts are one of the most intense and thrilling part of any road race, but potentially also the most dangerous.

In honoring Bernat and Dani, I hope the powers that be can stress to all riders the importance of being hyper-vigilant at the start of races. Sadly sometimes nothing can be done to avoid a rider suddenly in your path. I don’t know if rolling starts are the answer, but I do know in this age of amazing safety in motorcycle road racing, starts remain the one frustratingly difficult situation to deal with. — Larry Lawrence