Image: Foremost Media.

SX2 contender Rhys Budd’s 2024 Fox Australian Supercross Championship campaign has come to a premature end after suffering a frightening crash at Wollongong’s third round earlier this month.

The Raceline Husqvarna Tdub Racing entry was struck by privateer Myles Gilmore (Honda) as the field navigated the opening lap in heat race two, which unfolded just mere moments after a separate incident involving Alex Larwood (Honda Racing) and Ryder Kingsford (Yamalube Yamaha Racing) on the exit of turn one.

Budd was understood to have been knocked unconscious for over two minutes following the incident and was later transported to hospital, where he was cleared of a suspected neck injury while scans confirmed bruising to his brain.

The 23-year-old, who welcomed the birth of his first child in August, will sit out the final two rounds of the domestic supercross series that are due to be staged in Adelaide and Melbourne.

“Obviously a neck injury is very severe, so I’m lucky to walk away with a sore neck and few bumps and bruises,” Budd told MotoOnline. “It’s one of those crashes you see and you hope it never happens, but unfortunately, it happened to me.

“I’m going to take some time off and refresh – the CT scans were sent to Simon [Maas] from Racesafe and he said I’ve got a bit of bruising on my brain, so he’s told me to do completely zero exercise for the next two weeks. I’m going to enjoy the next two weeks off, but I’ll still be down in Adelaide to support the team.

“I don’t think I’ll be at Melbourne at this stage. I just want to get my body back to where it needs to be, and obviously the head is a very important thing, so I don’t want to rush back and do anything stupid, so I’m just going to take the rest that the body and the head needs. I’ll regroup and start my pre-season a little earlier.”

Larwood, who didn’t return for the remainder of the night in New South Wales, will line up in South Australia this weekend as the championship runs in conjunction with Supercars’ Adelaide 500, while Kingsford is set to sit out the penultimate stop of the series before targeting a return for World Supercross in Perth the following weekend.