KTM Junior Team’s Rene Hofer suffered a crash while contesting the fifth round of the ADAC MX Masters at Tensfeld last Sunday. The teenager is scheduled for surgery on Wednesday 1st August and will not compete again for the remainder of the 2018 racing calendar.

The sixteen year old will be airlifted today (Tuesday) from a nearby hospital in Germany to Universitätsklinik Wels, Austria where he will undergo surgery and the insertion of two plates to fix two fractures in his pelvis. Hofer also broke four ribs in the fall. The EMX125 European Championship red plate holder had been leading the second MX Youngster Cup moto when he hit a stone on the take-off ramp of a table-top jump and was dismounted.

2018 had been a fantastic season for Rene. In just his second attempt at the competitive EMX125 division he has won four of the ten motos on the KTM 125 SX, and scored two overall victories and four podium finishes from the five rounds of the season to-date.

“This is hard to take and we feel so bad for Rene; the season had been going so well for him and all the work he’d made in the winter was really paying-off,” commented Team Manager Didi Lacher. “He had made some important steps in his career in 2018 and was continuing to learn. I’ve rarely met a more determined and mature kid and I know he was fully set on his goals for the season and would probably have met them. We know motocross is an amazing sport, but it can also be a very cruel one. I have no doubt that Rene will somehow return stronger from this injury and experience, and will be ready to win again. We would also like to add our thanks to the people and facility at Wels for their great cooperation.”

The KTM Junior Team and the KTM Group wish to extend their best wishes to Rene for a full recovery and hope the Austrian will be back in ‘orange’ as soon as possible.