It appears that Tony Cairoli’s up and down rollercoaster year is to continue as another injury worry has the Sicilian contemplating – what for him would be something unthinkable – missing Mantova this weekend.
We are busy putting the finishing touches to our much-loved Dirt Bike Rider magazine this week and that includes the words from our most famous columnist, eight-time world champion Tony Cairoli. In his column he talks about his latest Grand Prix outing, which as we all know was the British GP. As always it’s a great read but one segment stood out. TC222 offers more details on his “damaged” his left wrist that he sustained while hucking the quad at Matterley Basin.
He landed hard and initially thought he would not finish the moto but as the laps ticked over he felt the pain ease and he pushed on to collect some valuable world championship points. However, when his shirt started to tighten on his arm he knew something wasn’t right. Cairoli doesn’t know what the problem is and he is hoping the doctors will answer that this week and that he will be told it’s not serious.
The latest injury setback is a cruel blow for the popular Italian who is eager to be competitive in front of his fanatical home fans in Italy. “It’s not easy but injuries happen a lot in motocross,” Cairoli says in his DBR column. “It just sucks more this time because it has happened just before Mantova – my home Grand Prix.”
But if he can make it through Mantova he will have some time to heal up before he next needs to sling his leg over the KTM 450 SX-F factory machine. “After that race – the 12th of 18 GPs this year – we will have almost a one month break to rest and prepare for the second part of the season,” he says. “It will be important to sort out my injury and come back stronger because as you know I never give up – it’s not in my DNA!”
There’s no official word from Red Bull KTM as yet but as soon as we hear how the medical assessment has gone we will update here on dirtbikerider.com.
Everyone at Dirt Bike Rider hopes our famous magazine columnist gets some good news and that he is able to make the start gate this weekend – Mantova and Cairoli go together like beer and pizza and who doesn’t love beer and pizza?
