Hofmann slips up

Kawasaki MotoGP rider Alex Hofmann high-sided his ZX-RR in front of a huge crowd at a pre race exhibition in Estoril, breaking a bone in his wrist forcing him to sit out the race.

Hofmann turned out with fellow riders Alex Barros, Makoto Tamada, Pablo Nieto, Casey Stoner and Mika Kallio to do a demonstration ride, but the German rider was caught out by just how slippery real roads can be.

Riding at just 40kph he opened the throttle and was shocked to find the rear spin up, the back slide round and the bike flick him off on to the road as the tyre gripped again.

“I don’t know what happened,” declared Hofmann. “I didn’t get on the gas that hard, but the rear still came round on me without any warning. It’s bad enough crashing at any time, but to do it at 40 kph during a demonstration parade is incredibly embarrassing. I didn’t want to take my helmet off in front of the crowd, because they’d have been able to see how red my face was.

“And if crashing in front of a crowd wasn’t bad enough, there were also quite a few television crews in attendance. Most of the people in the paddock had already seen the crash on television before I’d even got back to the track, so I know I’m going to have to put up with a few jokes at my expense this weekend.”

To make matters worse the crash left Hofmann with a broken Scaphoid bone and swelling in his wrist. The Kawasaki rider will now have to sit out Sunday’s race and possibly more.

scaphoid fractures are particularly slow to heal due to poor circulation to the bone, and even a rapidly immobilised fracture can require surgery. Under normal circumstances, a fully immobilised scaphoid fracture takes between six and eight weeks to heal completely.