Have you ever been in a car accident before? I have, and like a lot of other people, they can’t recall the minutes leading up to the actual crash. When I had my accident, the last thing I could remember was a turn-off two kilometres back down the road. One of the side effects of adrenaline is memory blanking; Mark Webber said that the last thing he remembered when his Mercedes flipped in 1999 was thinking “This is going to be interesting” as he caught the car in front. Davidson probably realised that he was in the barriers, and with the anaesthetic properties of adrenaline, he probably didn’t feel the pain until much later (if you’ve ever seen the “Top Gear” episode where Jeremy Clarkson drives a lorry through a brick wall, but doesn’t actually feel the pain of the impact straight away, this is exactly what I’m talking about). He probably didn’t realise the nature of the accident or the extent of his injury, and so treated it like any other accident where the driver’s priority is to clear the scene of the accident immediately.
I had a low-speed barrel roll in my uncle’s 2CV in an amateur dirt cross a couple of years ago. I could continue afterwards and I thought it was pretty funny. Doesn’t really count I suppose, but that’s the only car accident I can think of. I also had a near-miss with a car that was cutting a corner when I was soaring downhill on my mountainbike once. I kept going at first, but later I had to stop because my heart was going berserk, so I sort-of know what you’re talking about.
Either way, I always thought the ability to keep your head cool, even when you’re in a huge rush, is what separates professional racing drivers from occasional Sunday clowns like myself. But of course, if he really didn’t feel anything, I understand he thought nothing of it.
