Tuesday Conversation: John Haner
May 2, 2006
By CJ
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Millennium Technologies/KWS rider John Haner was on fire in the first Superbike race at Barber Motorsports Park a couple of weekends ago, finishing in eighth place and ahead of some pretty serious competition. Unfortunately, he crashed and injured himself later in the weekend, injuring his shoulder pretty badly in the process. We talked with him on Sunday at the California Speedway AMA round for this interview, then called him this afternoon for an addendum on how his surgery with Dr. Ting went yesterday.

John Haner was on hand at Fontana on Sunday, one day before going under the knife. CJ photo

RRX: It’s early in the season, but you’ve already had some extreme ups and downs.
John Haner: Yeah, really, I’m in the best situation of my life right now, with KWS. Kevin Hunt, the team owner, really put together a great program for us this year. I’m working together with my old mechanic, Mike Godin, as well as Owen Garnett, Chip Spalding, the team manager. I’ve been focusing on the superbike. It’s pretty much a Superstock bike with 16.5-inch slicks from Pirelli. I’m kind of their development guy in the States. Geoff May’s been the 17-inch guy.

What happened in your crash?
We were having some issues with side grip at Barber with the 17s, just because we hadn’t got the bike set up right. In the Superstock race, I just had a moment where the back just spun out from underneath me. It wasn’t a high-side or anything—just basically like if you hit the rear brake and spun it out like you were doing a stunt in the movies or something. That’s what happened—pretty easy crash, but I ended up getting into the gravel trap and started back-flipping. It tore my shoulder up pretty good.

Well, I guess it could have been worse.
Yeah, I want to thank Mark Witt, who’s a gentleman who’s been working at Barber since the inception of the track. We had a riders’ meeting the weekend of the test, about three weeks before the race, and there were probably 20 riders in there, including all your factory guys you can think of. We talked about different situations and went through each turn. At the end of the meeting, we started breaking down which situation was the worst, and everyone agreed that turn 1 was the worst. Mark went to work and ended up moving like 700 feet of guardrail about 50 feet back. I don’t want to think the worst, but [with the old situation], it could have been not standing, to death for me. Somebody got pictures of the wreck, and I’m doing a backflip where the wall was. You can see in the picture where I would have just been annihilated. I would really like to think Mark and all the efforts of everyone at Barber for all their help. It definitely made a difference in my career. That’s the positive of my injury. I was pretty fortunate with that.

Haner had a bad first round in Daytona, but his first Superbike race at Barber was impressive. Unfortunately, he was then injured. Andrew Northcott photo

You were riding great before that.
It was a really good weekend. We were doing pretty good. We had some bad luck at Daytona, with some issues we couldn’t really control. Saturday, the [first Barber] Superbike race was really good. I did get up there and battle with them and was doing well. I made a mistake, and [Neil] Hodgson and [Ben] Bostrom got by in back-to-back laps going into turn 1. Then Ben got away by about two seconds, and I just put my head down and kept chipping away. I probably made up a second or so, within some traffic throughout the race. By lap 16 or 17 I was able to get right there with him, and on lap 20 I made my move and was able to hold him off. Aaron [Yates] made a mistake that was unfortunate for him, and after a couple of laps I was able to pass him. He got me on the last lap with a great move. He stuffed me in the second-to-last turn; I thought I was as tight as I could get, but he was able to get in a little bit tighter. He was able to get me in the last turn; I tried to stuff him back, and we stood the bikes up and he out-drag-raced me to the finish line. It was a good finish—one of my better finishes in Superbike as far as getting up there with the factory guys, with the limited budget that we have. Thanks to the hard work that all my guys put in, it was great for our team. Unfortunately I got hurt on Sunday, but we’re going to come back, and I’ll definitely know how to be there and do it again. All I’m doing is healing up and getting in better shape. It’s given me a mid-summer break before the mid-summer break. I’ll look at it from the positive side.

What’s the damage?
I’ve got two ruptured tendons that are actually bleeding internally right now—one that holds the collarbone to the front shoulder joint, and the other one that holds the front shoulder joint to the bicep. That’s my understanding of it [although] I don’t know all the technical terms for it. My rotator cuff is torn, and the back side of the shoulder.

Haner underwent surgery yesterday and is motivated to get back on track as soon as he can. Andrew Northcott photo

Why did you wait a week to do the surgery?
Well, I got out of Barber on Monday morning and got dropped off in Oklahoma City. My friend Carrie Talmage, who’s a friend of Miriam [Deitcher], picked me up and I went and stayed with Ronnie Jones and his wife. I spent the night there, and then they took me to the airport the next morning. I flew into San Jose and had an MRI done that afternoon. We tried to get surgery on Wednesday, but the hospital was completely booked up. Ting is a doctor for the San Jose Sharks, and he had to fly to their playoff game that Thursday, so we couldn’t do it. I just came down [to Fontana] for the weekend to support my team and talk to my sponsors—just make an appearance before I got it taken care of.

What are your plans for when you get back on the bike?
I have nothing to lose. The points are all out the window. We had a bad race at Daytona in both classes, getting run off the track on the first lap in Superstock and some other issues in Superbike. Now, it’s fight for those podiums, and I’m going to do my best to get my very first win. That’s what my focus is. If we go down and tuck the front one time or something, it’s not going to be that big a deal. I’m going to be charging. I’m going to do my job and get my team up front and get a paycheck next year. That’s all it’s really about. I’m going to make this my living, and I’m not going away without a fight.

Editor’s note: We called a doped-up Haner this afternoon to see how his surgery went yesterday. Here’s what he had to say:

“Well, I got my surgery done, and when I left the hospital at 11:30 last night, it definitely felt tighter than it had. I’m assuming that it’s all fixed, but I haven’t talked to Ting yet. We’re moving forward and definitely on the road to recovery. I’m on my Game Ready machine [a machine that pumps ice water around an injury to reduce swelling], and sitting here watching the races on 2 Wheel Tuesday.”