Todd ruled out of NW200 2026 after failing medical following Daytona crash
Davey Todd gave everything to make the NW200 grid. Eight weeks of rehab, surgery in two countries, and three sessions back on a bike in Valencia last week. It wasn’t enough. The NW200 Chief Medical Officer ruled him unfit on Tuesday – and he’s gutted.
Davey Todd will not be racing at the 2026 North West 200. The nine-time winner was officially ruled out on Tuesday, by the event’s Chief Medical Officer at the Triangle circuit, without even an examination. Two months of hard rehab, a six-week stint at one of Europe’s most intensive recovery programmes, and a promising test at Valencia last week weren’t enough to convince the doctors to wave him through. That call belongs to the medics, and it’s the right system – but that doesn’t make it any easier to take.
“I’m gutted, I’m confused,” Todd told BBC Sport NI. “I worked so hard over the last weeks to get fit and to come back and race in front of the fans here at the North West.”
What happened at Daytona
The story starts in Florida on 5th March, when Todd’s debut at the Daytona 200 ended about as badly as it could. Riding a Triumph Street Triple for PHR Performance alongside his 8TEN Racing co-owner Peter Hickman, Todd was taken out by another rider in opening qualifying, a low-speed impact that seemed manageable. The PHR crew repaired the bike and sent him back out. What they didn’t know was that the steering had been compromised in the first incident. When Todd crashed again, it wasn’t a second bad moment. It was the first crash finishing the job.
The damage: a broken left femur, fractured right tibia, broken right foot, broken nose, and a fractured pelvis. He underwent surgery in the United States before making the journey home, and immediately started working backwards from the NW200 date.
The recovery
What followed was, by any measure, a serious effort to get back. Todd spent six weeks at elite medical clinic Formula Medicine in Italy, putting in ten hours a day, seven days a week of rehabilitation. Formula Medicine has worked with Formula One drivers and elite athletes — this wasn’t a standard physio schedule. Todd threw himself at it.
Last week, he got back on a bike for the first time since the crash, completing three 25-minute sessions at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia on an 8TEN Racing BMW M1000RR. By his own admission, he surprised himself. “Valencia is potentially harder to ride around than the North West physically-wise,” he said — and he got through it. The trajectory was right. He was making his way through France over the weekend, stopping at Oulton Park to support Peter Hickman at the opening BSB round, before heading to the north coast with real hope of passing the medical.
It didn’t happen. A statement from NW200 organisers confirmed: “Following his injuries at Daytona in March, Davey Todd underwent a medical examination by the Chief Medical Officer at the 2026 Briggs Equipment North West 200 today. Unfortunately, because of his injuries, Davey was found to be unfit to take part in the North West 200 this week.”
What it means
Todd had already been realistic about what a return would look like this week. He wasn’t coming to fight for wins — he said as much himself. He was coming to get laps in, stay race-sharp, and protect his chances at the TT. “I want to be on the start line for the TT in a few weeks’ time, and that’s the priority,” he said ahead of the medical. The NW200 was always the stepping stone, not the destination.
The TT remains the focus. Todd won the Senior TT in 2024 and finished second in the Superbike TT last year. He’ll be hoping the extra weeks of recovery now work in his favour when the Mountain Course opens for practice later this month.
For the NW200, his absence is felt. Nine wins at the Triangle. A rider in the kind of form, before Daytona, that made him one of the most dangerous names in road racing. The north coast will be a poorer spectacle without him this week — but the right call was made, and Todd knows it.
The TT is the one that matters. He’ll be back.
