Buncio's death: Who's responsible?

MANILA, Philippines - Maico Buncio had a great future ahead of him.

He was a skillful rider. He had four national titles under his belt. He was supposed to become the first Filipino ever to compete in the tough Suzuki 8-Hour Endurance Race in Japan. He was well-liked on and off the circuit even his competitors always wished him well. 

He was 22.

Last Saturday, tragedy struck the youthful superbike champion when he crashed out of a slight turn, a kink, along the Clark Speedway Racing Circuit. He’d been in many crashes before, two of them at the famed Sepang International Circuit only two weeks ago.

But this one, during the time trials at the CSRC, was too much for him to withstand. He was slowing down after running a stretch at easily 200 kph, on board his 600cc Suzuki GSXR bike, when he spun out, ejected, and flew ahead of his bike as it madly rolled on the track.

He slammed his body hard against an unfinished wall along the circuit, against protruding steel bars. He took the hit to the right side of his body, and from afar, those who were at the track saw Maico almost on his knees, his hands barely on the ground.

“It was as if he was trying to get up, trying to pick himself up. But he was skewered into the steel bars, two of them penetrating the right side of his body, damaging his liver and kidney,” said Miguel Ripoll, a former rider who had known Maico for over 10 years.

“Then help came, and they yanked Maico out of the situation, only managing after a couple of pulls,” said Ripoll, a former safety officer of the National Motorcycle Sports and Safety Association or NAMSSA, the body governing the sports in the country.

Ripoll said Maico’s father, Yoyong, narrated to him that Maico was conscious inside the ambulance that rushed him to a hospital in Mabalacat, Pampanga, after the crash. But it was at the Santo Tomas Hospital in Manila where he succumbed to his injuries the following day.

“Maico even phoned his girlfriend from inside the ambulance,” said Ripoll.

“But it turned out the internal bleeding was so bad and the following day his blood pressure suddenly went down and he passed away. It was a waste because he was so young and full of promise. We all liked him,” said Ripoll, also an organizer of motorbike races.

Here come the difficult questions. Who should be held responsible for Maico’s death?. Should it be NAMSSA? Should it be the owners of the track? Should it be the race organizers?

“It could be one and all,” said Ripoll.

“Had they all followed the proper procedure, the status and the codes of safety that race would not have been sanctioned because of that unfinished wall with those protruding bars,” he said, recalling a very similar incident that killed singer-actor Ric Segreto in 1998.

“Ric was also a friend of mine. And he died on the night (of Sept. 6, 1998) at the Buendia Flyover in Makati. He crashed on his bike, his body landing on the protruding steel bars of a concrete slab. It was almost the similar fate suffered by Maico.

“We should all go back to square one regarding safety in these races. We should all go back to the basic stuff. We can look at the absence of rumble strips in some corners of our race tracks,” said Ripoll, just as shocked as the country’s racing community.

“And tire barriers should not be used in motorcycle races because if you ram these tires it’s almost as hard as ramming a wall. Worse, they put these tires together with metal bars. And the guys who left that portion of the track unfinished?

“They should have done better than leave those metal beams protruding, with or with no race coming up. Maybe they should have bent them or cut them off. It all boils down to safety, if we don’t want anything like this ever to happen again,” said Ripoll.