Following a foot injury that sidelined him for Monster Energy AMA Supercross as a whole, Justin Cooper came on strong during the 2022 Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship. Cooper had been rather consistent and injury free during the early years of his professional racing career, but the injury left him unable to put pressure on his foot for months. While he lost out on a lot of the preparation coming into Pro Motocross, once he got started he kept making gains each week. Eventually, he claimed two moto wins and earned five overall podium finishes before finishing fourth in the 250 Class championship and earning the 250cc spot on Team USA’s Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations team set to compete on home turf in only a few weeks. Cooper raced MXoN before in 2019, winning his qualifying moto on Saturday before a crash and broken hand hindered his results on Sunday. The New York native is ready for redemption though.
Following a 3-3 day for third overall at the finale, our Kellen Brauer caught up to Cooper to talk about his day and season as a whole.
Racer X: Justin Cooper, 3-3 on the day. First of all, tell us about how hot, and the intensity of it all, trying to deal with the heat.
Justin Cooper: Yeah, it wasn’t actually, it was hot, but it wasn’t crazy hot, we had a little bit of a breeze. It was just the intensity, like how much intensity you could have throughout the moto. That was kind of the fine line and the hardest part about managing a moto. So didn’t really have the intensity the first moto and didn’t have the pace really for those guys. All day I was a little bit off the guys that were out front but battled hard and ended up on the podium. So it was a good day overall, a lot of positives to take away from it, and a little bit of a rebound going into the Team USA shootout here [Motocross of Nations].
Was it a little bit like, you almost had to pick your points when you would exert more energy throughout the moto as well?
Yeah, I really noticed that first moto when I was behind Marvin [Musquin] that he was sprinting half the track, and then he would really slow down in some turns on other parts of the track so, you just had to try and keep the intensity up the best you could without overexerting yourself and putting yourself in a hole. I wouldn’t say I did that the best today, but I was definitely fighting all day and it was good to battle with the front guys.
![Cooper's setup for the upcoming 2022 Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations.]()
Cooper's setup for the upcoming 2022 Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations. Align Media ![Cooper raced with his MXoN setup at the Pro Motocross finale.]()
Cooper raced with his MXoN setup at the Pro Motocross finale. Align Media ![Cooper leading the 250 Class field early in moto two.]()
Cooper leading the 250 Class field early in moto two. Align Media ![A 3-3 day earned Cooper his fifth overall podium finish of 2022.]()
A 3-3 day earned Cooper his fifth overall podium finish of 2022. Align Media
How tricky was this track? It definitely developed throughout the day and got some pretty long ruts, how difficult was it to actually react to the way the track changed too?
Yeah it was really tough because it was super deep at the beginning of the day for practice, and it baked out towards the motos. They really didn’t do much prep so there were a lot of the same lines from practice which made it really, really tough because they got hard packed, and they got dry. And the ruts weren’t moving. So, you could try to find new lines, but it was basically, there was always a main line out there and it got beat up, so I had to search a little bit and just had to be smooth out there. It was definitely a technical track with all of the ruts, and like I said they were really hard packed, so they weren’t moving much, and it made for really tough conditions.
Talking about your season quick, obviously it was a slow build coming back from the foot injury. And then you got to the point where you were winning motos again. Are you pretty satisfied with how it turned around for you in the second half?
Yeah, for sure it was obviously a bad injury. Did my best, just tried to bounce back, it was really a rollercoaster season for me. I’ve never really dealt with a season like this, I’ve been really consistent, especially last year I was on the podium every round. So, this was kind of a new thing for me, it was cool to deal with the adversity, it challenged me all the way through. I ended up getting sick after I got those moto wins, and that’s what I have been trying to bounce back from these last couple of weeks. But yeah, we were trying to fight that off, and definitely feeling better but it was hot today so I couldn’t really tell where my fitness was at with how hot it was, it was really tough. So we have a few weeks to train and come into RedBud as fit, and try as hard as we can to try and bring it home.
