Stop and Seal Racing’s Tom Toparis has detailed his heavy crash in Sunday’s opening Supersport encounter at Morgan Park’s fourth round of the 2024 Mi-bike Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK), the two-time champion’s title hopes over as he awaits further test results.

Toparis, who was just a mere 0.003s shy of pole position on Saturday, was locked into a battle with points leader Jonathan Nahlous after the restart, the pair trading positions for the lead on multiple occasions before Toparis was thrown into a violent high-side on the final lap, which saw the red flag drawn out for a second time.

The New South Welshman was visibly in pain as he was attended to by the Racesafe medical crew, ending his weekend prematurely. Early indications point to bone bruising while pending CT scan results will determine if he’s escaped further injury.

“Up until the crash it was looking like it was going to be another good weekend,” Toparis told CycleOnline. “I was leading a lot of the race, then dropped back to second, then on the last lap I was sitting in second looking to make a move on the second last corner. I came out of turn six, and the surface on the track is starting to break down – I think it’s coming from the cars.

“When I opened the throttle coming out – no different to the lap before – just because I was on that rough patch of the track, the rear just stepped out on me, so early in the corner too. It loaded up and spat me straight over the bars and onto my back, it wasn’t a very fast crash or anything, but I think it was just the angle that I came down on the ground.

“I felt the pain go straight through my tailbone and I was instantly as winded as I’ve ever been in my whole life, I couldn’t breathe. But yeah, I’ve just had a lot of pain in what feels like my coccyx, but it’s actually around my sacrum, and even up between my shoulder blades. It looks like it’s just bone bruising at the moment, but we’re waiting on some results from a CT scan to come back still.”

The first Supersport race was initially red flagged in the opening laps after an oil spill caused several of the leading riders to go down – including Toparis – which led to a lengthy clean-up delay. The Yamaha revealed the fall damaged his race leathers – fitted with an airbag suit – prompting him to change to a spare set without an airbag for the complete restart that ultimately saw him crash out.

“Race one was split into two because of the incident with the oil spill, basically everyone hit the deck because of it,” he continued. “I actually tore my leathers when I crashed, so I had to change into my other leathers between part one and part two of the race. So I got out of what was my airbag suit and into a non-airbag suit, and then I crashed there at the end of part two of that race.”

Toparis entered the weekend with a third title still in his sights despite missing the first round of the season in favour of a WorldSSP wildcard, coming into Morgan Park just 33 points outside of the series lead. However, now ranked sixth in the standings and 79 points in arrears to Nahlous, his championship chances are all but over with three rounds remaining.