It’s been a whirlwind season in Monster Energy Supercross, and all the news has left Autotrader.com/Toyota/JGR Yamaha’s Justin Barcia in the shadows. His early season rides weren’t awesome but weren’t terrible, and then a huge practice crash led him to miss the last few races with a hip injury. Barcia might be back racing as a soon as Daytona in two weeks, but he showed up in Atlanta to sign some autographs and talk to people like us. He also had to watch the race—which he doesn’t like to do.
Racer X: Where are you at now? What’s your situation?
Justin Barcia: Well, we’re here in Atlanta [Laughs]. I’m depressed watching racing. I’m on suicide mode. People have to watch me at all times. It’s dangerous—I don’t like watching.
I just want to say I’m impressed with the attire. You’re wearing a nice winter jacket, a scarf, not what I expect.
Yeah, well you know, sometimes I want to look nice. Hey, when I’m racing, I’m either wearing workout stuff or riding gear. That’s when I’m a dirt bike racer.
Is it an insult that I’m surprised to see you dressing well?
Not at all! That’s completely okay. I respect you respecting this.
[Barcia’s mechanic Ben jumps in]
Ben: Hey, when we were in Europe we had to dress nice.
Barcia: Yeah, that’s right. In Europe you have to wear nice clothes. In America people are lazy and they don’t care…. [Laughs] Seriously though, two weeks since I’ve had my crash so just healing up. The pelvis is cracked. It’s a weird bone. It takes time and you got to give it the time. That’s pretty much all I can say about it. It’s not fun at all.
Was it a pretty traumatic deal? All the rumors were, “Oh my God, dude. He broke himself bad.”
Yeah, I’m surprised I didn’t break myself in half. It was the worst crash I’ve ever had. I endoed off a triple and landed flat, and the Corona’s track is concrete. My hip pretty much just jammed in the socket really hard and cracked it, a few little chips. The chips are fine—that’s no big deal; it’s just the crack.
The bone chips are okay?
The chips are okay. That’s what the doctors tell me.
Do they ever heal?
No, they’re just in there.
For life?
Yup. Unless you want to get them taken out.
So you’ve got stuff floating around in your pelvis area?
I can guarantee you every racer here has chips floating around their body. That’s nothing.
But this is the pelvic area!
[Laughs] It is a little scary. At first it was like clicking and popping and I was like, this don’t feel right. In California they didn’t see the crack, so when I got home in Florida I saw my doctor and he found the crack. I was like, “Yeah, I didn’t think someone was right.” It’s just kind of a waiting game though. It sucks.
Can we talk about the season up until then? Was it good or bad or in-between? I really can’t figure it out!
It’s hard to say. I know where you’re coming from with that. I’m probably not the best West Coast rider, but we were getting better. It’s hard to say, but if I would have got a start I would have totally been in it. Every weekend I came from the back of the pack and got to where I could get to and that was pretty much it. We were riding good. The bike was getting better. The only thing we were lacking is starts. Today in Atlanta you can see that. It looks like these guys [teammates Weston Peick and Phil Nicoletti] had the starts, so that makes me happy. I wouldn’t say the season was going bad because the way everyone’s all over the place we would have been in the fight still if I wouldn’t have had that bad crash. It hurts bad to say that and see what’s going on, but it’s just a part of it.
Like, when you see Roczen and Tomac have a bad night, are you like, “Here’s where I could have made up the points?”
Yeah. I didn’t really have too many bad… My nights were definitely bad for me—I wasn’t happy. I wanted to be doing better. But they weren’t horrible, points-wise. We were still in it when we had that bad practice crash.
So the ultimate mystery: Had you have gotten a holeshot at, say, the third race, you would have been good you think? You think your speed would have been good if you had a chance to show it?
My speed’s there. I’m not being cocky at all. I know I can ride a dirt bike fast, and I’m super strong, I’m in shape. There is no doubt that I would have been battling with those guys racing if I had the start. I had the speed. The lap times are there. Everything was there. It’s just putting the whole pieces together. The biggest piece we were missing was starts.
So the good thing is your confidence wasn’t really shaken by that? You were thinking it will turn around?
We’re getting better. It definitely sucks to be hurt now and see that. It’s good to see my teammates getting starts, so that makes me happy.
