In a nail-biting 250SX West Regional Championship chase, one would expect RJ Hampshire, always a hard charger, to run desperation tactics to help his cause. In Denver, he had to make that calculation on the fly. Go for it all to get to Levi Kitchen, but also risk a disastrous outcome? He wasn’t close enough to pull out something wild. That will have to wait until the finale. For now, he’s making the smart decisions.
“I told the team ‘God puts me in these situations where I have to decide if I want to go for it or not go for it, and 99 percent of the time I go for it and it doesn’t play out,’” said Hampshire. “I caught him [Kitchen] a little bit then I would run into a lapper and lose some time. So, He did that for a reason for me tonight. Yeah, if I was .2 closer on that last lap, it would have gotten pretty exciting. But it’s cool. Heading into the last round being tied in points, and it’s kinda winner takes all.”
As this chase tightens, the Hampshire/Kitchen scenario has the potential to heat up. But with each opportunity, you find them showing each other more respect, avoiding drama, and even sharing some laughs.
“Honestly, I didn’t want to line up right next to him because I knew Jo [Shimoda] was there, too, and if I messed up the jump at all I was screwed,” Kitchen said after selecting a gate next to Hampshire. “But there simply weren’t very many good gates. It was either go there or go way outside, and I knew if I went there I would have gotten pushed. So, I just had to do it.”
![Levi Kitchen]()
Levi Kitchen Align Media ![RJ Hampshire]()
RJ Hampshire Align Media
Kitchen started ahead of his key rival and was able to stay clear the rest of the way.
“For me it was pretty much a race between me and him,” said Kitchen, breaking the race down to really he versus Hampshire. “Obviously it would have been nice to catch Jo, but he was riding phenomenal anyway. He was just keeping the gap the same and I was just trying my best to keep RJ behind me.”
Kitchen’s race looked uneventful, but it was not the case, first considering he is bouncing back from injuries from the last race in Nashville.
“Definitely sore but when I’m on the bike the adrenaline and stuff, you don’t really feel it,” he said, mentioning sore ribs. “Just when I get done, and we’re off the bike and still breathing hard and stuff, you can feel it. Especially at altitude. I was pretty exhausted after that. But I’m feeling good, though.”
Also, Kitchen’s boot came unbuckled off the start of the race, and he had to adjust.
“It happened in the first turn,” Kitchen said. “The first couple of laps it ran through my head, I didn’t know what to do. I skimmed the whoops, early, and I felt like my boot almost came off. I went to jumping just to make sure. I don’t really think it would have come off. After a few laps I was able to forget about it. I just tried to focus on the race and that helped me forget about the boot. It was pretty normal.”
Meanwhile, Hampshire was taking on hits throughout the race and had to try to keep focused through the rubble.
“There were a few points in that main event where my brain was all over the place,” said Hampshire, who got hit hard by Nate Thrasher during the main, and avoided a bunch of other near-incidents along the way. “It was chaos back there. I blitzed a whole rhythm one lap, got smoked on another lap. There were so many times where I had to reset and be like ‘Okay, try to get back up to him.’ I made a pass on Jordon [Smith], and he took all the haybales or Tuff Blox with him, so I had to reset again. There were so many moments, but I feel like I rode really well, the two guys in front of me were solid and I didn’t have any big kind of gaps where I felt like I could close in and make a pass.”
Hampshire had sold speed in the whoops, but the track didn’t let him use it to make a move.
“I was definitely making time but these flat corners after the whoops, it’s not good for blitzing,” said Hampshire. “It didn’t matter how fast I hit those, there was no pass going to happen because he was just jumping and going to the inside. The dirt was better than the last few rounds, it held up really well. I wish we had more tracks with whoops we were able to blitz because I feel like that would have been my strong point this year.
“Yeah, there were so many other areas on the track where I was trying different things and would make up a little bit of time here and there,” Hampshire added. “I was ticking them off, it came down to, there were really only two spots where you could really throw it in. After the big triple, but I couldn’t get close enough there. And maybe the second rhythm but we also started going inside there. As for the whoops, it didn’t really matter how fast I was going to blitz those there was no way I was passing him there. It’s one of those situations where it was good that I wasn’t able to go as fast as I wanted to, because the last lap would have been…yeah it would have been exciting.”
| Position | Rider | Hometown | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  R.J. Hampshire | Hudson, FL  | 208 |
| 2 |  Levi Kitchen | Washougal, WA | 203 |
| 3 |  Jordon Smith | Belmont, NC | 185 |
| 4 |  Jo Shimoda | Suzuka, Japan  | 181 |
| 5 |  Nate Thrasher | Livingston, TN | 123 |
Yes, Hampshire could have sent it in and tried to tee up Kitchen in a bold pass attempt. But the two also had several instances to throw in mind games or shade toward each other. They’re simply keeping this one above board. I asked both riders if they were headed back to Florida or California, or if they’d rather not tell. That’s when you find out how open they are with each other.
“I already told him earlier, I’m going to California,” joked Kitchen.
“I’m on a red eye back to Florida tonight,” said Hampshire.
Hampshire was even asked about his run in with Thrasher, and he joked, “I think he was doing that for Levi. No, I’m just kidding.”
Kitchen laughed at that one. Then, also, the laughed together when Shimoda was asked a question from a Japanese journalist, and Shimoda couldn’t understand her question. They put their heads in their hands, trying to hide the laughter.
Kitchen was also asked if having a teammate in Seth Hammaker could potentially help in the Showdown.
“I think Seth is going to be focused on the 33 on the Triumph!” he said, inciting more laughs by reminding of the Hammaker/Jalek Swoll tangle last weekend from Philadelphia. “I don’t think he’s going to get into our business at all. I think the biggest thing for me and RJ is, nobody is going to help us from the East Coast, if anything it’s going to hurt us. We’ve just got to stay away from them.”
In Denver, Hampshire decided to keep it clean and save the drama and risk for the finale. That’s this weekend, two riders tied going into the Dave Coombs Sr. East/West Showdown. It doesn’t get much better.
“It’s going to be back and forth.”
