When the International German Motorcycle Championship (IDM) holds its season finale at Hockenheim this coming weekend, the season won’t be over for Thomas Gradinger. The Supersport rider from Team Eder Racing still has a long road ahead of him as he recovers from his injuries before he can get back on a motorcycle next year. The Austrian spoke to the IDM editorial team about his future with more openness and candor than ever before.
The 26-year-old Yamaha rider had been plagued by bad luck on several occasions in 2022. First, he broke a bone in his right hand in a crash at Oschersleben. At Schleiz, the Upper Austrian—one of the title favorites—injured his shoulder and fractured three thoracic vertebrae.
After the Hockenheim finale, which he will watch from the team’s pit, he has more surgeries ahead of him. “Pins, screws, and plates will be removed from my back and hand.” A minor cosmetic flaw will remain for the time being. Gringer’s back tattoo, featuring his race number and the motorcyclist, will suffer a bit, “but I was planning to have it retouched anyway,” he says, not taking it too hard.
The plan to rebuild the team in the IDM so it can return to the Supersport World Championship has been put on hold. 
Gradinger had made the leap to the World Championship in 2017 as the IDM champion. However, various circumstances interrupted his career at the World Championship level. “That’s just how it is now; I can’t change it. Sometimes the plan isn’t feasible. You have to adapt,” Gradinger says, taking a realistic view of the situation. “But I’m assuming I’ll continue with Eder Racing next year. First, though, I have to see when I’ll be back on the bike and how things look then. It wasn’t exactly a minor back injury.” 
According to his doctors, Gradinger was “incredibly lucky” not to be in a wheelchair now. The experience has left its mark on him. “For two days, I even questioned whether I should keep riding my motorcycle,” Gradinger reveals, “but then that feeling passed. I can’t live without it. But now I get more joy out of certain things, and my priorities have shifted. “I can’t complain if I have to walk on crutches once in a while.”
At the Hockenheim finale, Austrian rider Leon Lambing will once again be riding Gradinger’s Supersport Yamaha YFR-R6 at the Motodrom in Baden, just as he did most recently at the Red Bull Ring.