MotoAmerica Communications

Saturday’s Motul Superbike race at Sonoma Raceway was an eventful one for Genuine Broaster Chicken Honda rider Cameron Petersen. After a solid Superpole effort that put him seventh on the grid, the South African was hoping for a top-five result in the race. Unfortunately, while negotiating the technical layout of Sonoma Raceway on lap 12 just past the halfway point of the race, Petersen momentarily lost control of his Honda CBR1000RR Superbike, which caused his feet to come off the pegs. He quickly got the bike back under control, and never crashed, but the speculation is that his left foot hit the ground and flung his leg back. Somehow, Petersen’s foot ended up above the swingarm and below the upper run of his bike’s rapidly moving chain. Despite the topnotch safety equipment that Petersen wears, there isn’t much that can prevent a spinning chain from quickly wearing a hole in the top of a race boot.

  Thank you to everyone for all the support and messages, could have been a lot worse but will have surgery next week to fix the couple tendons that got torn up and hopefully get my toes back up and running. #Camp45 #motoamerica A post shared by Cam Petersen (@campetersen45) on Aug 11, 2018 at 9:57pm PDT

Petersen gathered himself and, despite the pain, managed to bring the bike and himself back into the pits where he alerted his team to the situation, and they helped him off his Superbike. The result of the highly unusual incident is a deep laceration on the top of Petersen’s foot, along with some damage to the tendons.

People say that hockey players are tough, and that’s undeniable, but you can rank motorcycle road racers right up there in pain tolerance, too. Petersen was transported to the hospital where doctors assessed the damage, determined that surgery would need to be scheduled, and they sutured the laceration for the time being.

On Sunday morning, Petersen was back at Sonoma Raceway as a spectator. His mom Joanne said he would have surgery in a couple of days. According to the team, they are hopeful that Petersen will be able to race at Pittsburgh International Race Complex in two weeks. Of course, time will tell on that prognosis, but suffice to say, he is back on his feet again less than 24 hours after suffering the injury, which is very good news.