MCGUINNESS’S NW200 CRASH EXPLAINED
Honda Racing have confirmed that the crash that ruled John McGuinness out of the 2017 road racing season was caused by an unexpected throttle blip. McGuinness suffered a badly broken leg in the fast crash at Primrose Hill in practice for this year’s North West 200, and while Honda confirmed the 23-times TT winner had reported the throttle had stuck, or opened unexpectedly, it’s not until now the team have officially revealed the cause. “Having extracted and reviewed the data from the ECU on John’s bike, we now know that a setting on the ECU race kit software resulted in the throttle blipping unexpectedly,” team boss Jonny Twelvetrees revealed. “There was a long delay in getting the data from John’s bike due to the ECU being damaged, and it had to be sent to the supplier in China to extract the data from it. But we put in a countermeasure of a new spec of ECU for the TT to ensure the problem wouldn’t happen again. “Now we know what happened, the race kit software has been updated and is performing perfectly – there’s been no repeat of the issue in over 5000km of testing and racing since, including at the Slovakia Ring World Endurance race where the Blade was on the podium.” McGuinness broke his right tibia and fibular in the crash and has undergone numerous surgeries since as he continues to recover.