BSB Blog: Dearth of riders for BSB top spots

It’s been a bruising start to the BSB season.

Among the injured riders are James Ellison, sidelined for at least two rounds with a broken femur after a high-speed Thruxton crash, and Simon Andrews, out for who knows how long with a smashed foot after a horrifying start-line crash in the Valencia WSB round.

The MSS Kawasaki rider was helping out the PBM Kawasaki factory team, replacing injured Chris Vermeulen.

The question facing both Swan Honda owner Shaun Muir and Nick Morgan, MSS Kawasaki team owner, is who to put in the respective bikes in the short-term?

In past years there always seemed a pool of talented riders, just waiting for a chance to get back into the ring and prove themselves, but right now there are no blindingly obvious choices.

Morgan tried to get Karl Harris on his bike at Thruxton but Harris claimed that Aprilia and his GR Racing team boss Brent Gladwin both vetoed it.

So the team’s National Superstock title challenger Howie Mainwaring got the chance at Thruxton and was doing a great job until he got punted off in race one.

But with that Superstock title clearly within his grasp, it’s not ideal to expected the relatively inexperienced Mainwaring to do double duty.

Morgan considered Tom Sykes for Thruxton, and may well again for Oulton, but the WSB Kawasaki team can’t afford another injured rider.

Morgan admits he’s unsure which way to turn now  – and Muir is even more vexed about his situation.

As MCN understands it, he’s contractually bound to have replacement for Ellison on the bike at Oulton next weekend but who?

Muir’s talked about riders like American Jake Holden and Aussies Broc Parkes and Andrew Pitt but he’s also admitted he’s still uncertain about who to put on the bike.

One team who are sorted for Oulton are Motorpoint Yamaha who will run Ian Lowry on Neil Hodgson’s bike.