KEY POINTS:
It was with some trepidation that Warkworth's Hamish Dobbyn boarded a plane for Europe just over a fortnight ago.
The 15-year-old Yamaha ace crashed and injured himself just hours before he was due to leave, raising fears he would not be able to follow through on his plan to race at the World Junior Motocross Championships in Bulgaria on August 12th.
However, following recent training in Belgium, that anxiety has now eased with the teenager looking impressive during practice, comfortable alongside such motocross greats as 10-time former and current world champion Stefan Everts.
Under the guidance of Everts' father, Harry, himself a multiple world champion, the young Kiwi champion is showing no ill-effects from the injury to his now heavily-strapped arm.
"He's feeling really good and says he will now push it more," said Dobbyn's New Zealand manager Paul Williams.
"He's training hard and he's up to about 70 per cent of his speed.
"He said there were hundreds of riders at the GP (Grand Prix) track [in Belgium] and he tucked in behind one of them who looked a bit flash, but he couldn't keep up with him ... it was Stefan Everts himself." Williams said.
Everts is still looking extremely fast, even though he officially retired from racing at the end of last year.
Everts won most of his 10 world titles riding for Yamaha and the Belgian legend has always been someone who Dobbyn has looked up to.
Some of the other stars riding at the Genk circuit included GP riders Jonathon Barragan (Spain), Gareth Swanepoel (South Africa), Rui Goncalves (Portugal), Gordon Crockard (Ireland) and the entire Molson Kawasaki team.
Dobbyn said there were more than 300 riders at the Genk track and, at one stage, with over 200 racing, the track was so congested that he left the track and waited.
"It is a great relief that Hamish [rode] for several hours at a time without too much trouble with his broken arm. It gives Hamish and myself a lot of confidence for him to race at close to 100 per cent at the world champs in Bulgaria."
