Osborne Back On Track This Weekend

Cycle News Staff | June 29, 2012

Zach Osborne will make his 2012 World Motocross debut this weekend in the Grand Prix of Sweden, the Monster Energy Yamaha rider healthy again after being out for eight weeks following collarbone and shoulder surgery – the result of a pre-season crash.

The 23-year-old Osborne was coming off a very successful West Coast AMA Lites Supercross season when he suffered his injury, forcing him out of the early rounds of the Grand Prix series.

“I feel good on the bike,” Osborne said. “I feel as if I never stopped riding. I’m sure in a race situation it would be different, but I have a good start and am getting better and better. Before my injury I had a lot of momentum. I was fitter and faster than ever before so to get back to that level could take a little time. I just have to do my best to get back to a high level of fitness and competition form.

“I need to have some podiums and I would love to be on top form for the Grand Prix at Matterley Basin,” he added on his goals for the rest of 2012. “It will be my last British GP for a while and I want to do good. It’s local for me and for the team and it would be special to do well there.”

Osborne’s teammate Christophe Charlier should be in better shape for Sweden having made the most of the short break in the Grand Prix calendar to continue rehab work on the right shoulder he dislocated four weeks ago in France.

While Osborne is back in action, Michael Leib isn’t. The Californian is still recovering from a bout of Epstein-Barr virus and is expected to miss another three events. He is tentatively looking at a return for the Grand Prix of Czech Republic at the beginning of August.

In other injury news, Shaun Simpson will fill the vacancy under the Team Rinaldi awning to complete the works MX1-GP entry on the YZ450FM. Steven Frossard will not be back on the bike until the winter months after a knee reconstruction so Simpson will take over for the remainder of the season.