King already plotting return from latest painful smash
IT TAKES more than a few crashes and broken bones to keep Mark King down.
The all-round motor-racing stalwart is already on the comeback trail following a serious crash on the sands of Vazon.
Although, he admits, next season may be his last one of bike racing on the sand, a sub-30sec. run on the classic Le Val des Terres hill climb features highly among his remaining goals.
King was born into a motorsport family, with father Roger remaining one of the staunch local motoring figures, and first found himself behind the wheel in his mid-teens.
He has now got three decades of experience in the sport and not all of it is pretty.
It all came to an unfortunate head this season when the 49-year-old sustained some pretty grim injuries – seven broken ribs, plus damage to the lungs and several vertebrae – while in hot pursuit of an oval championship medal at Vazon a couple months back.
It comes as good news that King is well on the mend and sanguine enough to reflect upon it.
‘I’ve had quite a lot of crashes and if you’re going fast, you’re going to crash – if you do not crash, you’re not trying hard enough,’ he said in slight jest.
‘It was one of those freak crashes, to be honest – I’ve been racing a long time on the beach and it’s rare you have a crash with a bike unless you get tangled up, which is what happened.’
He may have lost out on the dusk stages of the 2018 season but an increasingly healthy King hopes to return to the scene as one of our most versatile all-round motorsport figures.
More in Tuesday's Guernsey Press.
