Getting his leg caught in a fellow rider's rear wheel and being dragged for about 25m was not the way Scott Columb wanted to end his second race meeting since knee surgery six months ago.
On the plus side, he finished third in the MX2 class at the Auckland motocross championships at Tuakau at the weekend and did not break any bones.
But the Queenstown rider is battered, bruised and frustrated following what he described as a ''crazy incident''.
After he was in prime position to wrap up his class after finishing second and first - with a 5sec lead - in the opening two races of the day, the first-turn tangle in the deciding third race wrecked Columb's hopes of securing the crown.
Coming into the first corner, he was on the outside of Hamish Dobbyn, of Matakohe, when ''he ran me wide,'' Columb said.
His leg got caught in the rear wheel and then jammed between the swing arm and sub frame of Dobbyn's motorbike.
Despite Columb ''yelling at the top of my lungs for him to stop'', Dobbyn rode on for another 25m, Columb estimated, before he was able to extricate himself.
''I was very lucky not to have snapped my ankle,'' he said.
Columb then battled through from last place to finish the day's final race in seventh spot, four points short of winning the class.
Fellow Yamaha YZ250 star Darryll King, of Hamilton, and Dobbyn finished the day equal on points, but Dobbyn won the class on a countback of results.
Josh Coppins, Columb's Altherm JCR Yamaha Racing Team chief, was philosophical.
''From a team point of view, this was a tough day at the office,'' Coppins said.
''Scotty was leading his class until the incident in the last MX2 race. The day would have worked out better but, equally, it could have been a whole lot worse.''
Columb also took the glass half-full approach, saying he wanted to ''forget about it and move on,'' and focus on his next outing, which will be the Otago motocross championships, on December 7-8, at Lee Stream.
