Main image by Kellen Brauer
RJ Hampshire is now a race winner both in supercross and motocross, but he’s still just been a tick off when it comes to fighting for the championship. Heading into 2023, Hampshire hopes to turn that all around and finally break through for some championship success at the professional level. He’ll be racing 250SX West, at least that’s the plan for now, and he’ll be staying in California during the West Coast swing to continue training and riding.
We chatted with Hampshire about preparing for the what he hopes to be a championship season for him and how his second year with the new FC 250 will be different than last year.
Racer X: Last year was good. Obviously, you got the win, but I think you were missing a couple steps that you wanted to get a little bit higher, a little closer to both championships. How do you rate it, and how do you turn that into what you want to do in ’23?
RJ Hampshire: I can’t be too hard about it. It was still my best year supercross-wise, and my first win. There were definitely struggles, but we grinded through it. It’s all about building. We learned a lot. It builds myself, builds my personality and my character. So, that was cool. Outdoors I rode well towards the end. I’m just excited. Another year with these guys. Continue to grow our relationship. Last year we had a bunch of new guys come in and seem to be gelling really well, even us riders throughout the week and stuff. Making a lot of progress. This bike, the 250 Husqvarna, has made a lot of progress just since racing in outdoors. These guys went to work, and we’ve got a really good bike this year.
Getting back on supercross after the season ended, what kind of changes or adjustments have you made to the bike that you feel is already really positive compared to what you ended the year with last year?
Right away we did a huge engine test that Austria was a part of. I got to put a lot of input in on that. Spent a couple weeks out here in California. Right away ever since that, it’s been a huge progress. Having Hanny on our team as the test guy helped out quite a bit, also. He’s got us all on a pretty good setting. Just now kind of making small, little changes here and there. Don’t really want to get too far away from what we know. I felt like I struggled kind of with that last year. Every change I made, I didn’t really know what the bike was going to do. So, just kind of stick with what I know. Like I said, small changes, a little bit of progress here and there. But I’m excited. It’s going to be a good year.
I think the plan for you is west, right?
Yeah. I’m actually honestly pretty dang excited for it. Really not a West Coast guy. I hate California but trying to make the best of it. We’ve got a house out here. My family is coming out here with me. We’re going to stay all of January. Just be positive about it. I’m actually excited. For once stoked to come out to California and spend some time with the team. These tracks and the shop are here. It’s so convenient. And having the family out here will be huge.
How much different is it out here training-wise? Obviously, you were doing kind of the Baker program a little bit the last couple years. So, what’s different or better that you like out here so far?
Our place back in Florida is hard to beat. Anywhere you go, there’s not going to be much better. It’s just like back home, the intensity is always so high. It is a grind. Most of the time whenever we come out here, like this week, it’s almost like a recovery week for us. We can kind of get back going. Aldon [Baker] knows that also. Usually like this week, it’s kind of just mellow and get through it. Be a bit different being out here racing on the weekends. But the main thing is the track is right here and the shop and having the whole team and being able to test what we want right at that minute, instead of it being all the way back in Florida. Just having the ability to be with these guys will be huge.
You’re still a month out from the start of the year, so what are some things that you still hope to iron out in this last month before we go racing?
We actually found something honestly yesterday that helped out a lot. I will have it Thursday, I believe, full-time now. It’s not anything new, but just some other guys were on it and I got to try it and actually really liked it. I felt like it helped the stability of the bike. So, once we get that figured out… I’m already in a pretty dang happy spot. We’ve been grinding back in Florida. Once we got this engine, it really helped out the whole package. That 250 class, you need a strong engine. So once we did that, and then it’s not only that. It’s just getting the parts and all of that kind of moving, because we ride a lot back home. So, you’re timing those things out quite a bit. But like I said, I’m stoked. The team is pretty excited. We’ve had a good off-season so far. Good riding partners. Keeping it positive, keeping it fun. The year will be exciting.
The end goal is the championship. When you go into a season and your eyes are on the championship, how is it to focus on each week and not get ahead of yourself? You probably want to win each race, but you also want to try to be in the championship fight. How hard is it to balance that a little bit?
I’m still trying to figure that out. I haven’t done that yet. We haven’t been in a championship fight. Just kind of grow as a person, grow as an athlete. Learn as much as you can. I’ve been in it a long time now, and I still am learning in it. I don’t understand. Maybe there was a different route I could have taken to learn it faster, but it’s my story. Just keep grinding. I’m not any less excited to go racing. I enjoy it. Having my family be a part of it. Just these guys kind of supporting it and understanding what we were dealing with last year. Really put in the work just to be back and have the confidence to go out there and be able to win.
I wanted to ask your opinion on this. We heard this morning that the 250 points rule had changed a little bit. I don't know how much you had heard about that, but it makes it now so that unless you win the title, you can kind of stay for a long time. Does that almost free up your mind a little bit in the fact that you don’t have to worry about how many points you’re scoring every year, and maybe should we take a dive, or whatever? Weird things like that have been happening the last couple years. Is it a relief that it’s this way now and the title is kind of the thing that forces you out?
Yeah. It sounds terrible, but I enjoy that break that we do have in the 250 class with supercross. But I want to win. I hope I point out and have to move up. I don’t see myself really anywhere else but with these guys at Husqvarna. Maybe I’ll have the opportunity to race outdoors on a 450 here soon, but if not, it’s cool because I think this year I probably would have pointed out if I did hit that, so that definitely kind of frees me up a little bit. Not just myself, but also sponsors and people look at that quite a bit. It’s cool, but hopefully I do point out and next year is my last year.
Talking about the season as a whole, we’re going deep into October with this SMX thing now. How do you look at how that’s going to play out for you, fitness, mental-wise? It’s going to be a pretty long grind. It’s going to be ten months of racing, and by the end of it, you might be burnt out but there’s obviously a pretty big prize at the end. So, how do you look at it?
I don’t think it’s going to necessarily affect us that much as we’re doing it. It’s more the break after that leading into the following year. I think if they can get that kind of figured out where we do actually have a little bit more of an off-season, it will help us out, at least recover. It’s tough. Even just now, I think we only had three, four weeks off. Now we’re racing during those three to four weeks. It will be tough, but heck, more racing, more prize money. Trying to grow the sport. We’re going to strap up. We’ll be there and just see how it goes next year.
