A lot of mention has been made over the significance of Chance Hymas’ 2026 year. The Idaho native is in a contract year with the Honda HRC Progressive team and needs to prove he deserves to stay there—which he hopes he will. Hymas also took a chance, no pun intended, on himself by relocating back home to the West Coast this year, instead of training at the Lawrences’ Dog Pound facility in Florida. Hymas had a 250SX win in the mud in 2025 and has always been strong outdoors, landing on the podium both in motos and overall, win landing a couple of wins, too. But the three straight knee injuries have been a hinder to his time on the track. For ’26, Hymas needs to be at all the races and put in strong results.

He showed up and showed improvements at Anaheim 1. He was solid all day and brought home a second-place finish in the main event.

At the San Diego SX, his main event was a little more chaotic as he made some mistakes and dropped back off of a podium spot. He was battling for second with Cameron McAdoo, then he had a scary moment late in the race when his front end started to drop after seat-bouncing a triple while battling Michael Mosiman. Hymas shifted up twice in the air, came up short on the landing and was headed straight in the 180-degree right-hand turn. Not only did he save it from completely going over the berm, but he stayed up, too, although Mosiman took over the final podium position. The #29 machine would get passed by both Levi Kitchen and Max Anstie in the final three minutes of the race before landing sixth. While it looked like another second place was a possibility, he had to be thankful for saving that almost bad crash. Yes, a podium finish slipped away, but Hymas regrouped and did not make the night a total waste.

Watch his near crash at the 1:25 mark in the highlights video below.