With the news that Carlton Honda’s Ben Townley crashed out at round two of the Aussie nationals at Coonabarabran (seriously, what’s with the names of these tracks? I tried saying it 200 times and couldn’t get it right. And the first round was at Conondale, which truly isn’t much better. What I really take away from this is that you Aussie’s are weird) came the realisation that sometimes, life is cruel.

Townley will be on the sidelines for a long time with this latest injury. Townley, as we all know, had accepted his friend Chad Reed’s call to come back to America to fill-in for Reed himself on Team TwoTwo for this summer’s AMA nationals.

It seemed like a great thing for everybody who wasn’t named Carlton Honda (after all, they were losing their number one guy). Townley would get to race with the best in the world, Reed would have a very competent fill-in rider and everyone was glowing about this deal.

And when Townley dominated the first round of the Aussie series (insert sound of the Carlton Honda team owner crying himself to sleep every night), it seemed even more of a good move. After all, BT was clearly in another class and after a year off due to injury, his return to prominence was a nice thing to see.

Some people were wondering why Ben was racing the second round at all as there really wasn’t any purpose to do it. The first one was part of the deal, an obligation to his original team he signed with before breaking that contract to go to the USA.

Ben Townley warming up before the crushing practice session at Coonabarabran. Image: Simon Makker/Makkreative.com.

He won easily and the second round wasn’t something that his team owner in America really endorsed. To me though, that’s a hindsight thing. Ben, as we have all seen, can get hurt crossing the street, or practicing and it’s not like he got landed on by another rider. Something like that can happen at a race.

Nope, by all accounts Ben crashed early in the first practice. And according to his old team manager David Pingree, going balls-out early in practices was something that he feared when Ben rode for him. But yes, injury’s struck and that is the one thing everyone feared with Ben.

Unable to stay healthy was Townley’s biggest curse. He wasn’t able to do it in 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2011. And these weren’t small injuries, these were things like hips, knees, shoulders that kept him out for a long time.

Think about that, since finishing third to Stefan Everts and Josh Coppins in the MX1 class in 2005, Ben has missed the majority of four out of his next five seasons with injury. In a young mans sport that’s constantly evolving, that’s some major blows to a guy’s program.

Only in 2007 when he won the 250 East SX title and finished second to Ryan Villopoto in the outdoors and in 2010 when he rode outdoors-only for Troy Lee Designs Honda on a 450 (at that he missed one race with injury and came into the season off a serious injury) has Townley been on the gate consistently.

And now, with another dislocated hip and at least four months of recovery time staring him in the mirror, Townley’s dream of racing in America is most likely gone. It’s another year of rehab for Ben and you have to wonder just how long he wants to put himself through this pain and anguish of being a professional motocross racer.

At this point, with all the injuries that have been documented, you have to chalk it up to more than bad luck in my opinion. There’s a pattern here that Ben has got to take a long hard look in the mirror and try to figure out what is going on. Be it riding style, mentality, bad doctor choice or training methods, Townley’s injuries are now a habit he’s got to break.

Chad Reed's TwoTwo Motorsports team hasn't officially confirmed its status for the outdoors. Image: Simon Cudby.

So where does this leave Reed? Well in a conversation with him the other day he indicated that he doesn’t want to just put a guy on the bike for the sake of putting a guy on the bike. He really believed Ben was a top five guy in the AMA nationals and wanted to get a guy who could be a player.

Before he selected Ben he told me that he talked to a couple of guys who race the GPs and who knows, maybe those conversations pick up again. I don’t believe we’ll see a rider like Kyle Regal or Tommy Hahn on the team this summer, but that depends on how much Reed’s sponsors liked the idea of his team going racing this summer.

Maybe they put some pressure on Reed and he relents to the idea that a top 10 rider is better than nothing. There’s also a Honda thing where the bike Reed has is a full works bike and is owned by Honda. If Big Red doesn’t want someone on the bike for whatever reason, then that someone won’t be on it. Anyone Reed selects has to make it through that vetting process.

No matter what happens with Townley or Reed’s team, it’s a shame that the original plan isn’t going to happen. It’s a blow to Ben, to Chad and to the AMA series as Townley’s inclusion was going to spice up the series.

And in the end, let’s hope that Townley can get to the bottom of whatever it is that is causing him to end up in the hospital time and time again and fix it. Motocross is better with guys like Ben racing.