British Superbikes news - Full Throttle: The day ‘Scoop’ was run over by James Ellison…

This was certainly the case when Larry Carter, British Superbike’s full-time pit lane reporter every season since the year 2000, suffered a horrible accident at Donington Park which involved the equally unfortunate James Ellison.

“I was a third of the way across the pit lane,” Carter, who has long since gone by the nickname ‘Scoop’, tells Eurosport commentator Greg Haines in Monday’s #FullThrottle podcast. “I had my wits about me. Looking into the distance, about 100 metres away, I could see James Ellison just leaving his pit garage. Just as James was accelerating away, he was on my trajectory.

“Over the years, the idea has been not to try and get out of anybody’s way; if you move, you are more likely to get hit. Stand there, engage eye contact with the rider and he will miss you. 99 times out of 100, that works. However, on this occasion, just as James was accelerating away, he happened to look behind him; the sort of thing you see when, just as a rider is leaving pit lane, for one or two seconds they cast their eyes back in the direction of the riders on track. By this time, the 50 or so metres between him and I had virtually become nothing.

“I’m stood there, waiting for James to cast his eye back in the right direction. It didn’t come in time. I thought, ‘I’ve got to make a split-second decision here. I’ve got to dive out of the way because he’s doing 40 or 50 miles per hour.’ I jumped one way, by which time James has just started looking in the direction which he intended. It was too late. He hit me. He bundled me face over apex down the pit lane: head, knees, head, knees, head, knees – an impression of an Olympic gymnast. James had fallen off the bike, which ended up against the pit wall…”

Listen to Larry’s pit lane horror story and plenty of amusing anecdotes in Monday’s #FullThrottle podcast. The show is available here on the Eurosport website as well as on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast platforms.