At the 2023 Nashville Supercross round of Monster Energy AMA Supercross, Justin Hill has his best showing of the season. The #46 earned a season best—and also tied a career-best—when he finished fifth in the 450SX main event. It was Justin’s seventh top-ten finish of the season, but his first top-five of the season, which ties his 450SX career best fifth-place finish at the 2020 Tampa Supercross. And, for the second time this season, both Justin and his older brother Josh finished inside the top ten in the same 450SX main event. With just two races left in the supercross season, the younger Hill brother is looking to finish out the season strong.
Here is what Justin said to our Aaron Hansel at the end of the day.
Racer X: Hey you’ve looked really good lately.
Justin Hill: I feel like I’m gaining comfort. Today I was actually a good bit tighter than I was last weekend before the rain. I definitely feel like I can drop the hammer a little bit more. I’m getting more comfortable and I’m starting to gel more with the feeling of racing. I had the bike figured out a few races ago, and started liking it more, but I’m definitely gelling more now with the nerves and mindset. I’m able to push a little bit harder. My goal was to be a solid top ten guy most of the year, if I could. Now I’ve been a top ten guy most of the year, which is good, but the last two weeks I’ve gotten greedy and I’ve been wanting a top five real bad. Now I did it, which is awesome.
You were in podium position for a while, too.
Yeah, and it got stripped from me. I feel like I kinda had something for Ken [Roczen]. Three weeks ago I woulda been like, “Yeah, no way.” It’s just good progress—running up with those guys is definitely a learning experience, as far as the pace and the feeling. Running up there, the way I did, then have a mistake with a lapped guy and get held up, squandering that podium position… I’m going to sleep well tonight knowing I had even more in the tank, and knowing I’m able to do even more than what I was able to do today. With a clean race and a good start, we got a shot at it. I didn’t know if we would, this year, honestly. No way did I think I was going to be an automatic podium guy, there are so many good guys and so many champions. Being off for two years and then being a podium guy is unrealistic. But to run in it for a little bit today, that feels good, it makes me feel like I’m here for a reason, and that I can be here for many more years.
It's a pretty cool story with you and your brother too. I know it’s been talked about a lot lately, but still. I think he was tenth tonight. Is this something you guys stop and think about together?
Yeah. That’s the first thing I said to Dirt Shark when I came off the track. It took 50 years for this to happen [brothers in the top ten in a premier class SX race] again, and we’ve done it twice now, which is pretty neat. I was more excited about that than I was the first time. We both had really solid races in Detroit, and today we solidified it. We played it smart, we’re showing up. Josh’s day was kind of a train wreck. He just put his head down and made it happen, and I was really proud of him for that. He had a lot of unforeseen things happen to him today completely out of his control. He was just struggling, big time. You could see it in his posture during practice. So for him to pull it together and get tenth, that’s pretty badass I think.
Yeah, the track was tricky too. It wasn’t easy at the end there. It looked like it was going to be an easy one yesterday during track walk.
I thought so too. Mainly just because of how they laid the whoops down and everything. The section with the elevated 180 turn, then 90, that whole section was really outside of itself, it was its own segment that was so different than anything else. From there you had a really notchy, screwed up section where you’re going, roll two, stretching for a table over two, stretching for a triple, launching into sand, going across a start stretch that’s really squirrely because it’s still muddy, into a section where it’s blue groove off the face sideways onto a table, into ruts in the next three-three that made for the most difficult transitions of the whole track. Then you turn around and hit a dragon’s back into a whoop section. [Laughs] It didn’t seem, on paper, like it was going to be too gnarly, but the way that it shaped up, it got insane, and you had to respect it.
With the tail end of this season going so well for you, is there part of you that’s bummed that it’s ending in a couple weeks?
I wish we had ten more races, I really do. I know I’m going to be three tiers up when we start next year, I have confidence in that, but it does hurt that I’m just starting to get it now. But I’m really excited for the next two races. I’ve been training at elevation and I’m really excited to see if I’m putting that to work correctly. I’m going to show up strong for these next two races. And obviously I’ve got another season I’m going to do in the summer [the FIM World Supercross Championship (WSX)], which I’m really excited for. It’s going to keep me on the bike. I didn’t like the idea of being a supercross only guy, unless I could race supercross all year, and I get to do that. I think next year I’m going to start ahead of the curve, but yeah, I’m a little sad.