Hopper Down A Digit

When John Hopkins crashed his MotoGP wild card ride on the Rizla Suzuki at Brno last summer, he badly damaged his right hand. Specifically his right ring finger has undergone 6 surgeries since then and on Thursday it was decided that the prognosis was not good. So yesterday (Friday the 13th), just before lunch, off came two thirds of the finger. Hopper is already saying it feels much better than it has in months and is expected to be fit for the World SuperBike opener at Phillip Island on February 26th.

More "Training" Injuries

Valentino Rossi's career took a turn for the worse after injuries sustained during a motocross training session in 2010. This was followed by an horrific practice session crash at Mugello that resulted in a compound frature to his right leg. He recovered from the broken leg, but the shoulder injury plagued him right through the first half of the 2011 season. Last week Nicky Hayden suffered shoulder and rib injuries during a dirt track practice session.

On Thursday, Andrea Dovizioso broke his right collarbone during a motocross training session. He underwent surgery today and is expected to recover quickly. With three weeks to go before the Sepang test round, he could be back in shape in time to participate on his new Tech3 Yamaha M1. In 2011 Colin Edwards and Cal Crutchlow recovered quickly from simple collarbone breaks but both Rossi and Pedrosa were plagued with slow healing shoulders in the first half of the season. While these were more serious injuries, it's never good to start a new season with recent injuries no matter how quickly they heal. Maybe it's time the relatively small number of MotoGP riders consider some other way of staying in shape during the off season.

End of 16.5" Wheels for Superbikes

Pirelli has announced that tyres for the 2013 WSB and BSB series will be 17" and they will not be supplying 16.5" tyres. It would appear that this will reduce costs and increase revenue, since they'll be able to market their Superbike-spec tyres to serious trackday riders. It will be interesting to see if this has any noticeable effect on lap times since, in theory, the 16.5" tyres provide a larger contact patch at full lean. Probably not but we could very well see a few more mid-corner crashes this season.

Mid-winter Fix

Here's a great IOM TT slow motion video ... for best viewing, double-click, then watch full screen at 720p:

More Injuries for Hayden

After recovering from a broken scaphoid bone in his right wrist, Nicky Hayden crashed during a flat track session in Kentucky on Tuesday. This time it's a broken shoulder blade and two ribs on the left side, so it's not yet known whether he'll be fit for the January 31st training round in Sepang. "I came up behind another rider, and he went to move out of the way. I wasn’t going that fast, but he clipped my front wheel and I went down and landed pretty hard on my left shoulder, and that was it."