World Champion Tim Gajser has confirmed he will still make his highly anticipated U.S. supercross debut later this year at the Monster Energy Cup, despite missing the Motocross of Nations last weekend due to a sore shoulder and hip sustained in a practice crash at his home in Slovenia in the lead up to the event.
In a Honda press release, Gajser said that he had a lot of bad bruising and some damage to the muscles in his shoulder and hip and decided to focus on the Monster Energy Cup on October 15 and the inaugural SMX Cup in Germany on October 8, where he will represent Honda alongside Gautier Paulin and Evgeny Bobryshev.
“We were speaking in Glen Helen about testing the new bike before Maggiora, and with Honda and HRC we worked together to make the test happen in Slovenia on my track last week," he said in a statement. "I really like the new bike and the test on Wednesday was going well and we’d decided that I was going to race it at the MX of Nations. But then in the whoops I made a little mistake and got sideways and crashed. Actually the crash wasn’t so big, but I hit the ground really hard with the whole right side of my body.
“I had a lot of bad bruising and some damage to the muscles in my shoulder and my hip. Because of that, we received medical advice that we couldn’t go to Maggiora in order to try and be ready instead to come back for SMX and Monster Cup because they were the main goals.”
Although he said it was a tough decision not representing Slovenia last weekend, the just turned 20-year-old feels he made the right decision to skip the event.
“It was a tough decision to have to miss the Nations, but in the end I think we made the right choice because in the week since the crash already I’ve had some rest and my body is starting to recover. This week I’ve started cycling again and working back towards fitness for SMX. Because a lot of the injury was muscular I think I will still feel some pain there next weekend, but I’m sure it will be ok."
