Yamaha Racing Team’s Glenn Allerton saw his chances of winning a fourth Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship presented by Motul Pirelli title come crashing down at Wakefield Park with a broken arm in March, but he’s finally back on the bike after completing laps at Sydney Motorsport Park and should be back on the grid at Hidden Valley during July. CycleOnline.com.au contacted him about his progress upon return.

Image: Alex Gobert (Foremost Media).

Being back on the bike…

I was really nervous about getting back on the bike because I’d thought about it so much lately and I’ve been pushing myself to get back on it. I wasn’t sure how my body was going to react or how it would feel, but getting back on was like putting an old glove on. I was comfortable straight away, so yeah, I’m happy.

The biggest challenge of having around 12 weeks off…

The biggest challenge has really been trying to have the best possible recovery that I can, just watching what I eat, trying to maintain a level of fitness and strength, while trying to manage a broken bone that is unstable. There’s only so much that you can do before you go too far when you have such a delicate break like I’ve had. Naturally, your body gets stronger, but the doctor kept telling me to keep things down at one kilo for a long time, so holding myself back was the hardest part.

Rehabilitation process…

Basically, I had the operation and I’ve had a physio working with me to try and keep the shoulder going. The first part was really difficult because I had a nerve twisted in the back of my arm, so getting the muscles to switch back on was really hard. We used a tens machine to get them to activate and trying to get it all back on was really difficult – especially my bicep where they cut through it. It involved between two and three hours a day of exercises, broken up into three sessions, just really light weights and trying to get the range of motion and strength to come back.

Image: Keith Muir.

Chances of lining up in Darwin…

I think that 100 percent I’ll be in Darwin. After seeing the doctor today he’s confident that it’s achievable now, because for a while there he didn’t want me to focus on it too much in case we didn’t get there and that’d be disappointing. The news has been good now, so Darwin’s on for me and I’m really looking forward to it. My expectations of where I should finish are probably a little bit higher than what everyone else’s is, but we’ll see how we go.

Target for the season-remainder…

For me, it’s really the start of my year now, because I wouldn’t count the first round as my first when we had so many dramas and then I didn’t even get into the second round before being in the hospital, so it starts now and all I can really do is go out there and try to win as many races as possible. That’s all I can focus on, is trying to get a result, and if I’m fit enough to win then so be it. I’m just excited to be getting back on the bike, because this injury’s been a little bit of an eye-opener for me. Racing got taken away from me for a while there and I’ve realised just how much I love it, so it’s given me a little bit more focus to get the maximum out of the time I may have left racing. I want to maximise every moment I can to be the best that I can.