Hodgson 50/50 On Barber Return

Paul Carruthers | April 15, 2009

Corona Extra Honda’s Neil Hodgson says he’s 50/50 on whether or not he will be able to race in the upcoming AMA American Superbike round at Barber Motorsports Park, May 2-3.The Brit, who suffered severe shoulder injuries in a motocross training crash on March 15, is currently rehabilitating the injury in hopes of making his return to racing after missing both the Auto Club Speedway and Road Atlanta rounds. Hodgson finished second in the season opener at Daytona International Speedway.”I’m just doing everything I can to get back my fitness,” said in his column that appears in Cycle News once a month. “I’ve been in this position before, and you just do whatever you can do to get back to racing as soon as possible. It’s frustrating, because all motorcycle racers are the same. We think we are superhuman somehow and we try to defy the odds of physiology and how quickly your body can repair itself, but we somehow manage it. I’m doing all I can and hoping I can get back to the next race, which is in a few weekends time in Barber. It’s going to be difficult, but I’m doing all I can and working as hard as I can.”Although he also cracked ribs and punctured his lung in the crash, Hodgson said the shoulder is the main issue.”I cracked every rib and it’s uncomfortable, but it’s the shoulder that’s the problem. I could ride a bike today with the way the ribs are – I could race today if I had to, but my shoulder… when you tear your rotator cuff, it’s quite a big thing to break. It’s like the most important part of your shoulder and I ripped everything off the bone so they had to reattach it. I’m still trying to get range of motion in my shoulder. What they said to me is that I’d think I wouldn’t be able to do it and that I’d get behind – because we have to take it very, very steady at first. Once the first two weeks are out of the way after the operation, we can be more aggressive with the rehab. So I’m looking forward to being able to push it a bit harder and hopefully make more progress.”At the moment, I’m about fifty-fifty on whether or not I can do it in time for Barber. I’ve gone from thinking that I’m definitely going to do it, to fifty-fifty. Obviously, time keeps going by and I’ve improved by about two percent. I need to improve 18 percent. I’m hoping the last 10 days will be a big jump. If not, I’m not going to do it. I will do whatever I can do to get it to where I can go. I’m doing all I can, but the days keep going by fast. It’s all I think about. My days are all about getting better and I want the days to slow down.”