British Supersport champion Jim Moodie is lining up a sensational baptism for the Southampton-based Chrysalis Racing Team at Thruxton on Sunday.

The Glaswegian has been out of action all season with injuries sustained in a crash in Spain last autumn.

Now, if midweek testing goes well, he is hoping to return on the Chrysalis GSX-R 1000 Suzuki supplied by Rob Willsher in the British Superstock Championship race which is supporting the two big British Superbike Championship races at the Hampshire circuit at the weekend.

Chrysalis team managers Lee and Neil Morris had initially moved for former British Superbike champion Terry Rymer after their own rider, Howard Whitby, had crashed at Brands Hatch the week before last and sustained shoulder and head injuries.

But Rymer's commitments as a car racer with Porsche prevented him taking up the Chryalis offer so they moved instead for Moodie, who was testing the bike at Mallory Park today.

Yorkshireman Whitby had been in top form going into the last round at Brands after finishing third at Oulton Park.

He followed up by qualifying on provisional pole in the wet at Brands before disaster struck early in the second and final qualifying session when he tangled with Southampton's John Crockford on the approach to the fast, sweeping Dingle Dell section of the Brands Hatch GP circuit.

Whitby crashed heavily, breaking his shoulder in two places and suffering concussion, and Lee Morris, who lost his own father, Dave, in a racing accident two years ago, said: "The approach to that corner is flat out and Howard was lucky not to have been injured more seriously."

He'll now miss at least two rounds of the Superstock series and Morris was left precious little time to find another rider.

He said: "It is a tremendous compliment to the team that a rider of Jim Moodie's calibre wants to even test for us at this stage."

Chrysalis, with a major new sponsor in George Walker Transport of Leeds, are planning to run Whitby in the British Superbike Championship next season.

Meanwhile, with the possibility of Moodie coming on board at Thruxton, they will be looking to stop the run of Australia's Paul Young in the Superstock event. He has won every race so far.