Corona Honda's Neil Hodgson reckons he had the scariest moment of his career during the AMA Superbike double header at the weekend where he went off the track at 165mph but managed to stay on.

The former World Superbike Champion was going through a right-hander at Virginia International Raceway when his Fireblade went onto the grass at 165mph and he thought it was going to be a massive crash.

"Running off the track was the scariest moment of my career, genuinely, because when you crash, normally, it happens in a heartbeat and you're down and you deal with it, but that was horrendous," said Hodgson.

"We do 167 mph as it goes right and, literally, I'm on the grass at 165 mph. And instantly when I hit the grass I thought I was going to be alright, and then the bike took off as it just went down in compression or whatever, it shook its head. And I thought 'I'm definitely going down' and I just thought, 'Oh my shoulder,' because I knew if I went down I were going to tumble.

"And I've never hung on as hard in my life, seriously. I just had the most violent tankslapper,  controlled it, and then it went airborne again and did the same thing again, lost control of it. And then got it again and it did it one more time and I managed to scrub enough speed."

Hodgson eventually finished the two races in 11th and eighth but expects his still-damaged shoulder to be a lot stronger for the next meeting in New Jersey.