RJ Hampshire was absolutely, positively not ready to podium in his return to the AMA Pro Motocross Championship. And yet, he did. How?
“Really just the suffer,” he said. “I mean, I haven't been racing all summer. I probably, and no one, really, expected that today.”
Hampshire is coming back from a long layoff with a wrist injury that still hurts. He hasn’t ridden much motocross, either, because at this point the SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX) Playoffs are his only play, so he’s been straight back to supercross. He did just one 30-minute moto the week before Ironman.
“If you guys actually seen the last couple of weeks, I shouldn't have even done that [podium],” he said. “So yeah, it's a little bit extra grit, kind of felt like I had a chance at landing on the box there late in the moto. I had a couple of guys come back to me, so if there was any chance, I was gonna take it and yeah, I did. Kind of stoked to end it on a third overall.”
Grit, of course, is the RJ Hampshire specialty. That, and this podium, makes the mind to wander to what could have been if RJ was inserted into this already-fun summer of 250 MX battles with Haiden Deegan, Levi Kitchen, Chance Hymas, Tom Vialle, and more. RJ’s grit against Deegan’s grit. Sign us up…and him.
“Wish I could have been in that Danger Zone a little more, but hey, SMX is coming up in a few weeks,” Hampshire said with a smile.
“It’s not in me to just go out there and cruise around,” said Hampshire. “The whole moto it was just in my head. ‘Get ‘em. Get ‘em.’ I don’t know. I was born different, I couldn’t do that.”
In the end, Hampshire ended up tracking down Tom Vialle and a late pass pushed him to third overall with 4-3 scores. He ended up 9-8-4-3 in his four returning motos to Pro Motocross. Make no mistake, though, the wrist still hurt!
“To be honest, it sucks right now,” he said. “I feel like it's kind of just peeling the layers off like no matter what, whenever I came back, it was gonna hurt. So just try to get through these two. Let it recover a bit, it'll get better. Like, it felt great leading up to this Saturday morning, like when I woke up felt awesome. And then, yeah, kind of back to where we were and let it recover. That's kind of where I'm at leading up to Charlotte. I feel like it'll definitely be better. I don't think I'll be 100 percent, but I'll be a lot closer than what I am right now. I'd say that was probably 60 or 70 percent today. Just for strength. Like, man, it's hard to get that feeling back and then how notchy it [the track] was, yeah, I was in a lot of pain. Also, a big shout out to the guys [on the team] because I haven't tested at all. Like I literally show up here on the weekends and we're changing things throughout the day. So just putting a lot of trust in Hunter our suspension guy and it shows that. Like I was bummed like I didn't get to show how good our bike was coming into the season. I felt awesome at Pala [for media day] and then just to sit on the couch, like, man, it sucked because I knew they put a lot into it. It just goes to show how, how much improvement our bike has made this year.”
Next up for RJ is SMX, where he struggled big-time last year, but he has a better plan on bike setup and what he needs to do this time. Sure, the return to supercross practice sparks the memories of the 250SX West Region Championship he grabbed earlier this season.
“My wrist honestly feels a lot better on the SMX style than outdoors,” he says. “Last year I made…I got lost coming into Charlotte where I was testing and went away from my settings and ended up…Charlotte, I left 13th and not in a good spot. So, this year we're not going to change much. I'm probably gonna go racing on my supercross setting and just kind of tweak it here and there. But yeah, for the most part, I'm pretty happy with where I am.”
One little extra nugget Hampshire added was that Ironman will likely be his last year 250 race in Pro Motocross, as he is fairly certain he will get his wish for 2025 and defend his 250SX title and then go to a 450 starting next May. Regardless of what bike or series he’s in, you know you’re going to get his best.
