Sidecar gladiator down, but not out
January 26, 2012
Deven Gates with a freeze-frame of his crash, captured on video. In the video shot, Gates (LEFT) and Monson are just about to hit the ground after being catapulted from their machine.
By BEN PISCIONERI
DEVEN Gates has been one of Sunraysia’s most successful swingers (sidecar passenger - a term taken from the way the passenger swings off the bike) and is currently ranked fourth in the world.
The 39-year-old has been racing sidecars for 27 years and over the past 12 months was enjoying one of his most successful stints, paired with former Sunraysia rider Warren Monson, who’s now based in Melbourne.
Last year the pair won the Victorian Sidecar Championship, the prestigious Curly Carmes Memorial Sidecar Spectacular and Dudley Bradshaw Memorial meetings among a host of titles.
Teamed up with his brother, Byren, Deven also came fourth in the World Sidecar Championship, held at Murray Bridge in South Australia in November last year.
It seemed those 27 years of racing, including a plethora of injuries and hard knocks, were worth it and finally bore fruit.
But three weeks ago, on January 8, Gates went from those extreme highs to the lowest of lows.
He and Monson were contesting the sixth round of the Ikon Suspension Sidecar Grand Slam series at the Gillman Speedway Stadium, near Adelaide, when it all went horribly wrong.
Racing in their first heat of the night, and only one lap in, Gates and Monson were dicing with Mal German when German got out of shape coming out of a corner.
“We got out of the start and were tussling with German for second when he pulled a mono coming out of the top corner and locked it up a bit and then angled across the track,” Gates explained this week.
“We came out of the corner knowing he was in trouble and we’ve tried to come in underneath him to give him a bit of room and he just cut straight across in front of us and it just high-sided us.”
With nowhere to go, Gates and Monson ploughed straight into the back of German’s machine, sending them and their machine somersaulting forward.
While Monson escaped uninjured, Gates came out of his forward somersault feet-first, overextending his right leg, shattering his lower leg at the knee.
He was sent rolling down the track several more times before finally coming to a stop about 25 metres from where the two bikes collided.
After his race gear was removed the 39-year-old could see a 25mm bump, which felt like bone, on the outside of his right knee.
But it wasn’t until he got to the hospital that the extent of his leg injuries were revealed.
The force of the impact when Gates’ leg hit the ground smashed a half-circle section of bone from the top of his tibia, where it meets the knee, shattering the bone into small fragments.
The blow also caused the bone to splinter downwards.
He’d also sustained tendon and ligament damage to his ankle/foot. This was certainly no simple, clean break, but a much more serious injury.
The 39-year-old was booked in for a marathon three-hour surgery the following Tuesday (January 10) to repair the damage.
Surgeons reconstructed the top of Gates’ tibia using the “larger chunks of bone” floating around in his leg, some the size of sugar cubes.
Bone was taken from his hip to replace the smaller pieces of bone that weren’t usable and the entire area screwed and plated together.
He now has about nine screws in his leg, just below the knee and a large plate holding everything together so it can heal.
Gates now faces at least three months on crutches and in a knee brace and can’t put any weight on his injured leg.
The 39-year-old said this week the seriousness of his injury could mean the end of his elite level speedway career.
“I can’t really afford to have another accident like this,” Gates said this week.
“I think if I had another accident like this and if I damaged any of this area again then all the hard work the surgeons have done would be wasted and I won’t get the 20 years out of my knee they say I should have.”
Gates, who is also a dedicated Werimull Football Club player (195 games), said his injury also made him look at the bigger picture.
“I was thinking when I was in hospital in Adelaide, I have twin boys who are nine-and-a-half and because of my racing and my sport they’ve probably missed out on some junior sports that they could play,” he said.
Gates says he’ll spend the next 12 months recovering and regaining his fitness before contemplating any racing or sport, but won’t totally give up on his passions.
“In terms of racing, possibly in a couple of years time, if I thought my body was up to it, maybe more on the local scene though,” he said.
“I’d also like to be able to stitch together a couple of games at Werrimull as I’ve only got five games to go before I get my life membership (200 games).”
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