Image: Russell Colvin.

CDR Yamaha Off-Road’s 2015 season went from bad to worse at Hedley’s third round of the Australian Off-Road Championship on Saturday when Chris Hollis sustained an elbow injury that forced him out for the weekend.

With team newcomer Tom McCormack still recovering from a broken scaphoid at the Calder Park Enduro-X, Hollis’ injury sidelined the team altogether in Victoria.

Hollis came off at the start after falling on the back of Tye Simmonds’s KTM machine and hurting his right elbow. He did manage to pick himself up off the deck and complete one lap, until pulling in and calling it a day due to the pain.

On Saturday afternoon Hollis drove himself to Latrobe Regional Hospital in Traralgon, about an hour and half away from Hedley, to get an X-ray. However due to having to wait for long, Hollis gave up waiting and made his way back to the venue, but only as a spectator. The former AORC champion will see a specialist today to find out the extent of his injuries.

“We were going down the start and they have this hay bale there to try and narrow the track up, which is a silly idea as you have 30 bikes going into there pretty fast,” Hollis told MotoOnline.com.au.

“What happened was in previous races they had created really big whopped-out bumps. I saw Tye and another KTM rider come together in front of me, one of the bikes flipped up in front of me and I hit that and I fell onto the back of Tye’s rear sprocket.

“I got going again, but my arm was quite sore. Once I got past a couple of riders and started to push, the pain was just ridiculous, so unfortunately I had to stop.”

With Hollis scoring zero points over the two rounds, it sees the likeable character dropping back to 10th in the overall standings with 38 points on the board heading into next month’s South Australian round at Karoonda.