Image: Jeremy Hammer (Foremost Media).

Seperate incidents at Avalon Raceway’s fourth round of the 2016 Australian Supercross Championship have forced several SX2 contenders out of this weekend’s AUS-X Open in Sydney.

After placing sixth in his heat, Honda Genuine Racing’s Luke Clout was unable to complete the 15-lap main event after his night came to a crashing halt just seconds into the race.

The New South Welshman was caught up in the field as they exited turn one, resulting in him being taken down and suffering a variety of injuries including a fractured wrist.

“I went down pretty hard and got landed on by a few guys,” Clout explained to MotoOnline.com.au. “I went across to Racesafe to evaluate everything, I had to get stitches from my thumb down to my elbow, and I pretty much squashed one of my fingers too.”

“I just found out that I’ve fractured the radius bone in my wrist, so I called Yarrive [Konsky] and had to let him know that I won’t be able to race this weekend, which is pretty crappy. I feel like I was starting to get better, and I’m really bummed to miss my home race.”

Just moments after Clout’s incident, Serco Yamaha’s Wade Hunter also found himself in a similar position as the field entered turn three. The popular Queenslander, who was third in the championship standings heading into the event, will seek further medical advice this week and may need to undergo surgery on the three broken bones in his foot.

“I doubled to go into the berm like I thought the person in front of me was going to, but they doubled to the inside and cleaned me out in the middle of the air – now I have three broken bones in my foot,” Hunter told MotoOnline.com.au.

“I didn’t get x-rays until I flew home to Brisbane, I was going try and race [this weekend] if it was just a fracture, but it’s definitely not possible for me to do that. I’ll see a surgeon this week and will figure out whether it needs surgery or not because one of the bones has been displaced pretty bad.”

In addition to Clout and Hunter’s absence this weekend, Husqvarna’s Connor Tierney and Nathan Crawford are both unlikely to contest Sydney’s double-header, although no official statement has been from either rider.

Tierney suffered a fracture to the wings of his spine near the T8 vertebrae following a mistake in the main event, while Crawford came into contact with another rider as he negotiated a rhythm section in the last chance qualifier and was escorted off the circuit by the Racesafe medical crew grasping his left shoulder.