Liberty Ducati's Brett McCormick will return to World Superbike action at this weekend's Silverstone round after a horror crash at Assen saw him hospitalised and sidelined for 90 days.
The Canadian fell when he was in collision with reigning champion Carlos Checa, injuring vertebrae but he says he is now fully recovered from the accident and is treating the British round as a 'racing test'.
“It has been tough to sit out for this much of the season. Obviously with such a serious injury you don't have a choice, but it's still really hard to sit at home on the couch and watch the races from the sidelines. It got a lot more difficult once I was healed enough to move around and start being active because you are always anxious to come back earlier than you should," he said.
"The last few weeks have been awesome though. I was able to start riding my motocross bike and train a lot harder, so I'm really hungry to get back on the track now. From a medical point of view I'm 100% recovered. The last X-rays I got done were a couple of weeks ago and they showed that the bone was fused back nicely and enough to start taking impact. It's been a couple of weeks since then, so every passing day it strengthens even more. My thumb was a big worry also because it was such an ugly break, but the surgeon did an awesome job and it healed up completely normal.
"I'm just happy to wake up every morning and be able to get out of bed to walk around. Breaking your neck is a pretty big eye opener, and you definitely appreciate the little things a lot more from it. I've been lucky to have the summer months to recover, because I've been able to bicycle every day and now ride motocross. Now I'm just counting down the days until I get back overseas to race again.
"I'm beyond excited about getting back on the Effenbert Liberty Ducati! I've missed it a lot, and I was only just getting to know it in Assen. Hopefully we can pick up where we left off! I'm really excited to get back and see the team too, they've all been amazing these past few months so it will be nice to see some familiar smiles."
