Parkes injured in biking accident

From Yamaha Racing

Yamaha World Supersport Team riders Broc Parkes and Fabien Foret enter the fifth round of the 2008 season in third and fourth places in the championship respectively, but now with contrasting expectations heading to Monza this weekend.

Foret is out to secure his first win of the season, at a track he knows well, but a recent mountain bike accident has disrupted the preparations of Parkes, the winner of the opening race at Qatar.

Parkes has cracked his left elbow and damaged his scaphoid bone after his recent fall, injuries which are now added to a broken left hand, sustained after an accident in practice at the previous Assen round. Parkes is determined to race at Monza, and is now taking all possible steps to be ready for the first practice session on Friday.

"I had an accident when training on my mountain bike but the results of the X-rays came back with better news than we thought at first," Parkes said. "I have a couple of cracks in my left elbow. Not complete breaks, so that is quite positive. I have damaged my scaphoid but it is not broken.

"The damage is on my left side, so at least it won't affect my throttle and braking arm. Monza has a lot of hard braking zones so we won't know how I will be able to ride until I get on the bike on Friday. Then we will see what's possible."

Massimo Roccoli raced in the Italian Supersport Championship race at Monza last weekend and took a solid second place on his Yamaha Team Italia Lorenzini by Leoni R6 as he prepared for this weekend's WSS race at the same venue.

WSS full-time rider David Salom will once more line up with Angel Rodriguez in the Team Yamaha Spain World Supersport squad because regular rider Davide De Gea continues his recovery from his double leg break. Rodriguez was in fine form at Assen until he fell.