Aaron Summers has revealed how he escaped serious injury after a horror high-speed pile-up during last weekend’s Premier League Championship final.
The Tigers captain was sent flying through the air after colliding with team-mate Hynek Stichauer in heat seven of the first leg at the Peugeot Ashfield Stadium on Friday night.
He ploughed into the air fence and his bike followed on and struck him as he lay on the deck.
It saw a lengthy delay as the 27-year-old was treated by medics before being taken to hospital.
The crash also ruled Summers out of the second leg and had a major impact on his side’s prospects in the final, which they ultimately lost.
But despite the 70mph smash, Summers suffered only a hand injury, which should heal fully given time.
He said today: “I’m all right. At the minute, I think I have two broken bones in my hand. I go for another update this morning to get it checked out again.
“Other than that, my body’s a bit sore and will take some time to heal up a bit. I just need to see if I need to get surgery on the hand or not.
“I spent until 9am on Saturday in a neck brace and it wasn’t comfortable at all. They were worried about my C1 in my neck but they think it was just a bit of wear and tear on there, but they were happy with it in the end.
“I don’t really remember much of the crash. I remember going into the corner and Hynek spinning out in front of me. Then I can just remember being in the ambulance outside. I don’t remember walking into the ambulance or anything like that, it’s all a blank to me.
“I’ve had a pretty big impact on my helmet. It’s pretty smashed up but it’s done its job, it’s saved my head. I took a bit of a funny spell when I was in the ambulance, but that’s probably to be expected from such a big crash like that.”
Summers managed to make it to Saturday’s second leg at Armadale to cheer his colleagues on, but they went down 58-32 on the night – an aggregate score of 99-80.
Despite the disappointment, Summers feels it’s been a season with plenty of positives – particularly given the resurgence under owners Gerry and Michael Facenna.
He said: “All of us were gutted that it didn’t go our way but we all got back together as a team on Saturday night back at the track, and the boys were all happy and pleased with how the season had gone.
“In the year that Gerry and Michael have taken over, we’ve done good, but just fallen apart in the final stages of everything.
“But it was definitely a good season for us all and next year can only get better.”
Attention will soon turn to team-building for the 2016 campaign. Summers is among the favourites to return next year, that being strengthened by the fact he’s a club asset, but he says whoever ends up racing at the Peugeot Ashfield Stadium should have no problem blending as a team.
He said: “A lot of the riders riding in this country in the Premier League already know each other anyway – it’s not like it takes a lot of time to get the team bonding.
“But I think if I’m back next year and get the same role, we’ll probably push a little bit harder at the start of the year to make sure everyone’s still getting on great and riding well together.
“It’s just a waiting game at this point in time and we’ll see where things go from here.”