Wyman withdraws from Brainerd round with lingering elbow injury

TUCSON, Ariz. (Aug. 2) -- Kyle Wyman withdrew from this past weekends races at Brainerd International Raceway due to lingering issues with his elbow injury, sustained on June 13th. KWR did not field a replacement rider for the weekend's races. 

Wyman had surgery on his fractured olecranon bone on June 13th, had a plate and 7 screws inserted to fixate the bone on June 17th, and was able to ride three weeks later at the Laguna Seca round, where he subsequently won the King of the Baggers race and the championship on July 13th. Wyman however was still unable to pilot his Panera Bread Ducati Superbike this past weekend, due to the increased physicality needed to ride the Superbike. 

"Going into the Brainerd weekend I certainly was expecting to have no problem riding my Ducati," Wyman said. "We even had the Thursday test day to get up to speed and feel it out. During the second practice session on Thursday I had a moment that made me brake extremely hard to stay on the track, and I felt a pop in my elbow and immediate pain. I continued riding, but the swelling and pain worsened. I rode the third session on Thursday and then sat out the final session. Friday morning I rode again and went faster, but I couldn't do more than three laps without severe pain and weakness, and making mistakes on the bike. I couldn't ride to my ability."

With worsening pain and inflammation, the best course of action was to withdraw from the weekend so to not jeopardize the safety of any rider, or to risk further injury. With the next round at Pittsburgh coming up August 13-15, 2021, there is another two weeks for Wyman to improve his fitness to close out the season strong. 

"At this point the injury is pretty heartbreaking, because I've now missed the last three superbike rounds, and it's still going to be tough for me to ride at 100% in Pittsburgh next week," Wyman added. "I'm glad I was able to win the Baggers title for Harley-Davidson at Laguna Seca. I feel like that is some redemption on this injury. But with how the injury happened with such bad luck and now with the recovery process taking longer than I suspected, it's a major bummer. The season is flying by. I'll be working hard with the doctors to get healthy and get my body ready to muscle the bike around once again. I just can't thank my sponsors enough for sticking with me through this tricky situation and I look forward to putting them back up front in superbike where they belong."

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