Image: Foremost Media.

GasGas Racing Team’s Regan Duffy was ruled out of Sunday at the Coolum 2023 Penrite ProMX finals after sustaining burns the day prior in qualifying, resulting in the Western Australian not receiving medical clearance to compete.

After posting the 13th quickest practice time, Duffy showed the potential to secure a top 10 qualifying shootout spot in the following session.

Posting the seventh fastest sector one time, also the fourth quickest split two throughout the qualifying session, a crash soon after ultimately meant Duffy couldn’t put the pieces together and the burns sustained from the incident ruled him out for the remainder of the event.

“Devastated, to be honest with you,” Duffy explained to MotoOnline. “I felt like I had some good glimpses of old coming through. At the start of qualifying, I started putting in a good lap behind some of the faster boys, I had a couple of real good sectors and unfortunately had a crash and burnt myself, and that was the end of my weekend.

“I’m spewing about it, I would have loved to have been out there today. I love the sand, I was starting to feel good, at one with the bike like I used to be. I had to go to Racesafe and get treated for the burns, they were pretty bad so I ended up having to go to hospital. Did not get cleared to ride, unfortunately, so that was that, just had to watch for the day.”

Duffy endured luckless moments in his comeback season to national motocross this year, and recently prior to Coolum, an uncharacteristic crash brought a premature end to his outing at Queensland Moto Park (QMP).

Nonetheless, the determined number 72 looks to put those setbacks behind him and deliver a solid pre-season in the build-up to the 2023 Australian Supercross Championship, which commences in Adelaide on 7 October.

“I really want to try to have a solid pre-season leading into supercross, obviously it will be my rookie year in the premier class but I want to try to do the best I can,” Duffy added. “I really want to have a go, so we will see how we go in the lead-up, but looking forward to it.”