A head-knock from a heat race crash is what denied Kyle Webster of starting in the SX2 main events at the 2019 Monster Energy S-X Open Auckland, as Racesafe declared him unfit to continue.

It looked to be a promising night for the Penrite Pirelli CRF Honda Racing rider, who qualified second fastest and led majority of his heat race before crashing heavily in a rhythm section.

He remounted and finished the outing in sixth, however a medical evaluation post-race deemed the impact too severe to continue racing.

“Qualifying in the afternoon was really good and I posted second fastest time, just 0.02 seconds behind Chris Blose,” said Webster.

“The heat race was going great and I was leading, but then I came up short on one of the jumps in a rhythm section and I hit my head hard enough that Racesafe said I had to sit out the rest of the night.”

It’s been a tough month for Webster, who was forced to miss round two of the Australian Supercross Championship in Port Adelaide after suffering partially collapsed lungs in a training crash.