Toyota factory Supercar racer Mike Conway will miss his 11th start at the 24 Hours of Le Mans after a cycling incident this week left him with broken ribs and a broken collarbone. Another famous cycling incident saw IndyCar driver David Malukas take a nerf from his newly signed contract with Arrow McLaren and missed the first six rounds of the IndyCar season, including last month’s Indy 500. If I had a nickel for every time a rider missed a triple crown event due to a cycling injury in 2024, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t much, but it’s strange that it happened twice.
Cycling is extremely dangerous, and for riders who need all their bones intact and on track to be truly effective, it’s probably not the best idea to keep their stamina up during throughout the season. And yet, almost every professional racer is a racer. Every grid on the planet from sports cars to F1 is packed with people finding their fitness on two wheels.
I’m not completely against risk. After all, I ride a motorbike. But I can type words into my laptop from my hospital bed. It would be almost impossible for Valtteri Bottas to finish outside the points at this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix if he fell off his bike and broke his femur or whatever. When cycling endangers your motorsport career, contracts, sponsors and livelihood, is it still worth doing?
With luck and effort, Conway will recover to race again, but at this point it’s anyone’s guess when. And thankfully Malukas is back in the saddle and will join the Meyer Shank Racing team for the remainder of the 2024 season, took over Tom Blomqvist’s vacant cockpit. Both have achieved relative success in their own right, but I hope these injuries do not plague them long term and affect the results of their individual racing careers too significantly.
