LEAD STORY - SPEEDWAY: High-speed mayhem lost in blur

ANENDRA SINGH
Michael Patey doesn't remember much.
But what is vivid for the 16-year-old are the moments before his slightly built 152cm frame parted way with his solo bike and an hour after he ended up in the ditch following his impact with a two-metre-high fence.
``I remember thinking I'm going to fall too and end up in hospital for a few days,' the former Hastings Boys' High School pupil tells SportToday after he was rushed to an Auckland hospital from the Rosebank Speedway meeting in Avondale on February 1.
The drama came after his 500c Czechoslovakian beast hurtled mid-air from the impact of running into his Palmerston North club teammate, Brendan Manu, who had fallen into the path of his Jaws bike as the pair led lap 2 of the second A grade race boasting British riders.
``I didn't walk for two days. I couldn't even get out of the bed to have a pee. The nurse had to get me a jar.'
The early Sunday afternoon crash left him concussed, nursing a fractured bone at the base of his neck as well as internal bruising to his lung, stomach and left hip.
``The whole right side of my body was throbbing. It felt like pins and needles everywhere,' says the rider.
He is recuperating at his home in Flaxmere with mother Katherine and father Ian.
Ian is also the mechanic for his machine, which will require $2000 to fix.
Katherine was standing next to the pit gate when all hell broke loose as Patey and Manu were ``all locked in slide'.
``All I could see was his body flying and disappearing. I didn't know if I wanted to see what happened,' she says, explaining the ambulance and paramedics had beaten her to him as she crossed the track to her son.
``I've seen a lot of speedway over the years and I've never seen anything like it. The two of them are lucky to be walking and not have spinal injuries.'
Patey, who has been on bikes from the age of 6, graduated from motocross to speedway three years ago. It's his first season with the bigger bikes in the A grade. Ranked No.4 in the under-21 national rankings, he had finished runner-up to South Island rider Andrew Aldridge that Sunday.
``I remember lying on the ground and my mate Hayden Allen (of Auckland) talking to me and telling others not to take my helmet off,' says Patey, who didn't feel the indescribable pain until an hour later as the adrenaline wore off.
Did he think he was not going to walk?
``Nah, I could wiggle my toes in the bed.'
Despite the pain and anguish, Patey is not the least fazed. He still dreams of making it to the professional circuits of Europe.
In fact, a more immediate goal is to patch up his bike and make it to the next speedway meeting in Palmerston North late this month.
So how does that sit with Mum?
Explains Katherine: ``Ever since he was little that's all he ever wanted to do. To me it's no different to rugby and returning after an injury.'