Waters Released From Hospital

Paul Carruthers | July 12, 2010

Australian Superbike Champion Josh Waters crashed on July 7 during a Yoshimura Suzuki test at Willow Springs Raceway in Rosamond, California, and suffered a severe concussion and a collapsed lung. He was released from Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster, California, last night and is likely to make his return to racing at the Laguna Seca round of the AMA series, July 24-25, missing the first of his two scheduled AMA races at Mid-Ohio, July 17-18.”We brought him back last night,” team manager/crew chief Peter Doyle said today. “He’s still concussed but he was awake for the whole day yesterday and he’s showing huge improvements every day. We’ve got him down here close to the workshop [in Chino, California] and he will be seeing more doctors over the next few days.”Although he’s been ruled out of Mid-Ohio and has been told he can’t fly for two weeks (from July 11), Doyle thinks Waters will be ready to go for Laguna Seca.”If you ask me now, I’d think Laguna is doable,” Doyle said. “He won’t be able to fly, but he can drive there. He is showing big improvements every day.”The crash occurred on the fastest portion of the Willow Springs racetrack – between turns eight and nine.”He ran off the track between [turns] eight and nine and it looks like he rode in the dirt for a long way before it threw him off,” Doyle said en route to the hospital on July 7. “He was unconscious and it looks like his helmet strap cut his throat a bit and that bled into his lung and one lung collapsed. That’s the main thing now and he obviously has a pretty severe concussion.”Waters was airlifted to Antelope Valley Hospital where he spent the next five days.