Rutter to ride Andrews’ Kawasaki at Brands

Michael Rutter has been drafted into the MSS Discovery Kawasaki team for this weekends’ Brands Hatch BSB triple-header.

Rutter replaces injured Simon Andrews whose is not fit enough to ride after recent surgery to repair the scaphoid he injured in testing at Snetterton test.

Andrews only discovered it was broken four weeks later at Knockhill on July 6  but race with the injury at the Scottish venue and at Mallory two weeks later on July 19.

He then underwent surgery in Belgium the following day, performed by Dr Claes (who has a reputation for his successful surgery on injured motorcross riders) to screw the damaged bones together.

Andrews has since had intensive therapy to speed the healing process and was in Belgium earlier this week but yesterday he and the MSS team took the decision that he was not fit enough to ride.

MSS team boss Nick Morgan initially approached Brendan Roberts but the Aussie is not fully fit either, so Rutter was drafted into the team he last rode for in 2007.

Rutter had been looking at spending the weekend on the sidelines after the SMT Honda team he rode for at Mallory were unable to raise the money to continue racing.

He said: It’s all a bit last minute. We only arranged it this morning (Thursday) I’d planned to be at Brands but just to put my face about the paddock.

“This is the fifth different team I’ve ridden for this year – but at least I’ve still got my old Kawasaki leathers I can wear.”

Rutter though had no idea he’s going to have to do three races this weekend. “Chris Anderson’s my mechanic this weekend and he said, ‘don’t forget there’s the race on Saturday as well as Sunday’s races.’ I had no idea. I can’t believe it – Morgan’s got an extra race out of me for free!”