“So, yeah, all these small details that people might not see, like those things are kind of adding up,” said Jo Shimoda after last week’s podium ride in Seattle.
Jo Shimoda ended last season on fire, nearly nabbing the SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX) in a close fight with Haiden Deegan, and also carding a 1-1 score at the final Pro Motocross race of the year. Then came a high-profile switch from Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki to Honda HRC, which is the team that swept all the 250 titles last year with Hunter and Jett Lawrence. That’s some pressure, but Jo’s start to 2024 has not met those expectations, with just two podiums in six races. That’s led to chatter that Jo only rides well when he’s back in the points and the pressure is off.
He would like to say the trouble is more subtle than that. His big problem has been the early laps of the races, highlighted again in Seattle when he started poorly then started moving forward, later, only to crash. He recovered for a podium, his second straight dating back to the previous 250SX West race in Glendale, Arizona.
It’s tempting to say that Jo just isn’t a good starter. His story is that the details are what matter, and the story is a lot bigger than just bad starts or high pressure.
Jo is not a “sendy” rider like most young 250 riders. He doesn’t hang it over the edge like so many of them do. Jo is great at finding lines and adapting when the track gets rough, kind of like a Cooper Webb with his ability to come on late in the races. In the 250s, though, that makes like tough because the tracks in the heats and the mains are often completely fresh. After that SMX finale in Los Anegles, Jo said he took too long to move forward in the final moto, because the track was smooth. As it got rougher, he started to make moves, and he nearly dug it out in the final laps. But it was too late.
Jo has tried to be more aggressive, early, but that might be what led to a series of crashes that started the 2022 supercross campaign. This year as he adapted to his Honda the starts have gotten worse, but the team worked really hard over the 250 West Region break to fix that, and it worked well in Seattle. For what it’s worth, Jo holeshot the “fake” start in practice, then nailed the holeshot in his heat.
Why didn’t it happen in the main?
“Today I had a good start in free practice and the heat race,” he said. “But in the main event, I kind of, I didn't know that I couldn't do a wheel spin on the gate. I tried to take the dirt off and I got told not to. So I had a little bit of wheel spin there and that made kind of like weird, like not a pop, but when when the front wheel hit the rut, it acted pretty funny.”
That set Jo back early again, but he charged forward until a crash, then he still came back for third. On laps 14 and 15, Jo was the only rider carding 55 second lap times. No one else was in the 55s.
“My riding has been pretty good, I’d say; I just feel like I haven’t got one decent start in the mains,” he said “It felt good to get one in the heat race, but I need to figure it out when it counts. It wasn’t fun to crash multiple times tonight, but I somehow still got on the podium. I’m pretty stoked on this one.”
“In the main event he just kind of got hung up, didn’t come into the first turn great, but made a few good moves," said Team Manager Lars Lindstrom. "That’s the thing [starts] that’s been kind of holding him back, right? It’s not just about him and technique stuff, it’s gate picks and just confidence, I guess. Trying to work on that, and hopefully we get some confidence for him."
This Triple Crown tonight in St. Louis will tell a huge part of that story. Shorter races will put a higher emphasis on starts and sprints. Can Jo start like he did in that Seattle heat race tonight?
“I believe I can still win,” Shimoda said after Seattle. “The class is like, just getting tighter and tighter where you can't have any mistakes. I lost probably about 10 seconds on the first lap [off the start] and with the crash by another 10 seconds. So it's like, yeah, you just can't, there's no room for mistakes.”
After all the work on starts before Seattle, Jo and his team are staying put for St. Louis.
“Had a good two days of riding and just kind of stayed chill,” he said on press day. “Yeah, we're just back [to the same setup] and there's no really like time to do anything crazy.”
