MX Diary: Pit stop gossip...
By Sean Lawless on 4th May 16
Check out what the gossip is from this weeks off-road community...
The Charlotte GP of the Americas on the evening of Saturday September 3 will be held in the dirt track oval.
Initially it was envisaged the event would be under the lights of the adjacent four-lane drag strip but the organisers have now transferred to the half-mile dirt oval. Both facilities are just across the highway from the Nascar arena.
Aleksandr Tonkov missed the Latvian GP after bruising his back in a practice crash last Tuesday.
The Russian also crashed during the previous weekend's Dutch Masters at Mill to miss the podium but retained second in the series to the undefeated Jeffrey Herlings. A decision on his potential participation at Teutschenthal will be made this week in consultation with Doctor Claes.
Brian Hsu is back on his RM-Z250 and is lapping and training after a badly broken left wrist sustained last November but he missed Latvia and will also be absent from his home GP in Germany.
The former world junior and European champion is still dealing with some discomfort and lack of flexibility in the joint and the team is carefully measuring his progress with a view to a racing return once he feels fast and fit enough to race a full 35 minutes rather than the 20 minutes he can manage at present.
Suzuki testing since they got back from Latin America has focused on getting the starts nailed and Jeremy Seewer proved the worth of the hours at the practice track on Saturday when he holeshot MX2 qualification.
Gautier Paulin was still absent in Latvia. The Frenchman had hoped to return to racing at the track where he led France to Nations success in 2014 but snow in Belgium meant a lack of bike training and the return was put on hold.
HRC team-mate Evgeny Bobryshev dominated practice at Kegums but only got 30 yards down the straight in qualification before Tim Gajser veered to his right and put the Russian and Tommy Searle on the ground. Tommy continued in pain but the Russian was rushed to the medical centre to check out his back.
The iFly JK Yamaha team was briefly back in action in Latvia as both Alfie Smith and Alex Snow have recovered from their early season injuries. Alfie separated his shoulder in Qatar while Alex cracked his shoulder blade at the Culham Masters.
The return was indeed brief. Alfie withdrew after landing on his shoulder in the opening MX2 moto while Alex took a severe blow in the ribs from his own handlebars as he lost it in the waves. The team will not be in Germany this weekend.
KTM MX2 No.3 Davy Pootjes is out again. Getting back to speed after breaking his left collarbone, the Dutch kid shattered his right collarbone in three places when he collided with Jorge Zaragoza on the first lap of qualification.
