Hampshire: "It was going good until it wasn't."
Team Australia was always going to be a tough out at this year's Monster Energy Motocross of Nations, and Team USA came into its home event with a last-minute lineup scramble due to injuries for Chase Sexton and Haiden Deegan. Still, the stayed in contention for the victory early, with Eli Tomac and Justin Cooper going 4-10 in the first moto, and actually leaving that race tied for the points lead with France (Australia suffered from Kyle Webster's first-turn crash on a 250 in the first moto).
The second moto presented RJ Hampshire's first race of the day, and the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna man was flying early, charging from 10th to second pretty quickly in the moto. Soon after, though, the crashes started, and that's when Team USA's path to victory started to narrow.
"It was going good until it wasn't," said Hampshire in the post-race press conference.
Hampshire crashed three times in that second moto, saying the first two crashes were "with help." Hampshire was losing traction in a turn atop the Godzilla hill and then got hit by Jo Shimoda, which put him down. He charged back through again, but Slovenia's Jan Pancer tripped Hampshire up in the corner before the start straight, putting RJ down again. At that point, Hampshire admitted he was "pretth smoked" but he kept charging, leading to a big crash on a downhill. By then, the Florida native was feeling the impact of a long week.
Turns out Hampshire had already suffered a big crash early in the week and wasn't even sure he could line up for the weekend. He admitted he was fighting through some pain in his ribs and his side and then impacted his riding style. He also--in a statement echoed by teammate Cooper--said the Saturday qualifying race took something out of him. Hampshire was on the ropes all weekend, and then came more crashes in the final moto. The final one was bad, as he smashed into a TV camera stand and ripped a hole in his bike's gas tank. With that, his race was done.
"I crashed seven times today, so I think that gives you an idea how comfortable I felt out there."
He posted about it all on his Instagram account
