Indy MotoGP: Ben Spies hopeful on neck fitness

Ben Spies is hopeful a trapped nerve in his neck won’t hurt his bid for a second successive podium finish in his home race at Indianapolis this weekend.

Spies rode throughout the Brno race weekend earlier this month with a numbness issue in his left arm, which was caused by a trapped nerve in his neck.

And the factory Yamaha rider is hoping the issue will be less severe in Indianapolis after his stellar weekend at the world famous Motor Speedway a year ago.

Spies grabbed pole position and took second in the race in his rookie campaign and when asked by MCN for an update on his neck injury, he said: “It is definitely better. I got a chance to get in and see some doctors and though I still haven’t got everything under control, it is moving in the right direction and definitely feels a lot better than Brno. But it is definitely not 100 per cent and it’s one of those things that takes a little bit of time and they can’t quite given the answer when it’s going to be perfect

“But it’s definitely a trapped nerve and not one of those things that no matter how rest rest you get, it is not going to change it. It just takes time to heal and time really isn’t on our side right now, but we can only do what we can do and again in Brno I thought it was going to be a disaster in the race and I was extremely happy with the outcome for how I felt. I’m not coming into this weekend 100 per cent fit and confident, but I’m definitely a lot, lot better than I was in Brno.”

Asked by MCN whether he could repeat his brilliant 2010 weekend he added: “It’s going to be tough. Right now I don’t have enough confidence to say what I can do but again we’re going to get on the bike and give it 100 per cent like we did at Brno and see what we can. I’d love to be able to do something in front of the home crowd, but right now I’m just not 100 per cent and don’t know what we can or can’t do. It could be a miracle and we could do a great job on Sunday or suffer through it again like Brno. I’m just in the dark a little.”

The 2009 World Superbike champion also confirmed to MCN that he will race an upgraded factory YZR-M1 this weekend after a successful test in Brno earlier this month.

Spies will ride with a slightly more powerful in-line four-cylinder engine, revised electronics package a Yamaha fairing he tested in the Czech Republic.

He added: “We’re getting the new engine here, hopefully even better than the test. It’s definitely a step in the right direction and it will help us, but is it the biggest fix? We don’t know. We did test some electronics and I’ll probably be using some of that here. The fairing is one of the things we’re just going to have to kind of run a little bit this weekend and see what’s better. It was to improve the agility. At Indy it’s not so important because the change of direction is at such low speed, so basically for me it’s which bike is faster down the straight and that’s what we’ll be using here.”