Tampa, FL Tampa Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship
RJ Hampshire, the 2024 250SX West Region Champion, was anticipated to aim for a title defense in his last 250SX season ahead of a relocate to the premier class full-time. Throughout today's SMX World Championship media days, Hampshire shared info with members of the media a title defense is extremely not likely. Off the heels of his very first expert champion, Hampshire had a considerable wrist injury simply a number of days ahead of the AMA Pro Motocross Championship opener that sidelined him up until the last 2 rounds. He suffered another injury this off-season that set back his preparation for 250SX West Region racing.
Hampshire has actually been singing about his perfect circumstance of running the # 1W in the 250SX West Region while racing an FC 450 in the premier class on the East Coast races with objectives of getting race experience ahead of a full-time relocate to the 450cc class. Crucial MX's Lewis Phillips asked Hampshire if this was still the strategy, and Hampshire– to his credit– shared in truthful information of his battles– both on and off the bike recently with the death of his daddy in November.
Lewis Phillips: Are you secured to doing 250 West, 450 on the other coast or could that still alter?
RJ Hampshire: Yeah, it's altered. Yeah, it's out the window. It's not even like I've been concealing it. 5 weeks ago in fact today, I needed to have surgical treatment on my wrist. Very same surgical treatment as what I had in the past. I had actually a screw put in right before outdoors began. Returned racing and I was still in a great deal of discomfort at the last 4 races I did and figured that throughout the 6 weeks off for off-season it would improve. Returned on the bike recently of October, out here, and I remained in more discomfort when I got on the bike that initially day than what I was before I stopped. Right away we understood there was a concern. Arranged a medical professional's consultation for that Wednesday. And wound up in fact having a crash. It's insane. I had a crash the day actually at midday on Wednesday. I had a medical professional's consultation at 1:30 that day for my wrist! Fractured my 5th metacarpal simply beyond my hand. So, yeah, physician consultation got moved forward a little bit, revealed up there and I'm like, “Hey, appearance, here's my primary concern, it's my wrist. Likewise, I simply fractured this.” It was simply kind of like an indication of like, “Hey, appearance, you require to get your wrist repaired and figured out.” I flew back home to Florida and on November 1, I had another surgical treatment on my wrist, got that screw taken out, got another plate put back in. Yeah, I have not truly done much off-season work at all. Simply cardio occasionally and I still have a number of weeks left.
