“I’m glad we made it through supercross,” said Max Anstie, who placed third overall in the 250SX West Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship. “Now we’re full steam ahead for outdoors. So, looking forward to that. So, now I’m wide open and getting for outdoors for round one at Pala.”
Unfortunately, the Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing rider did not make it through the opening round of the 2026 AMA Pro Motocross Championship at Fox Raceway at Pala healthy.
Anstie, age 33, had a crash in the second 250 Class qualifying session that sent the Englishman back to the pits with sever swelling and discomfort in his glutes. Max tried to ride the first moto at Fox Raceway but ultimately pulled off. Anstie and his team then ruled out racing round two, the Hangtown Motocross Classic in Rancho Cordova, California.
Now back home and healing up and looking to soon get back on his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing YZ250F, Anstie weighed in on just what he has been up to.
“I’m back in Florida now,” said Anstie. “I could have raced at Hangtown, but obviously I wouldn’t have been 100-percent. It’s early in the season. I want to get back to feeling good and then come back for Colorado. That’s the plan, yeah, I’m back in Florida. I’ve just been recovering. At Pala in Q2 I ended up checking out this line. It looked good and everything looked fine. I hit this jump and I landed exactly where I wanted to land and it looked fine until I landed. I think what happened was that there was a kicker underneath a bit of slop. There was mud and slop on top that was kind of hiding this kicker. I landed just thinking it was going to be soft, and I would just power through it and wheel tap off the top of this thing. I could not see a kicker. I couldn’t see anything in there until I landed and then I just hit the thing and then ejected.
“I got a hematoma literally on my butt cheek,” continued Anstie. “I mean in all fairness, I got lucky. If I would have landed on my hip or my shoulder, I think it would have been bad. My butt muscle, my gluteus, basically took the full force of it. So, nothing is broken. I’m fine. I literally couldn’t sit down for a few days and it’s all black and blue. I was hammering it with physiotherapy and trying to get back to Hangtown. Obviously, that didn’t happen. I would have been able to race, I think. There is a difference between being able to be competitive and then just being out there. I don’t want go out there and just make up the numbers. I want to be competitive, especially since it’s only round two. You want to be strong.”
“I just came back to Florida,” he continued. “I’m actually in Cairo, Georgia now. I’m just down the road from The [GOAT] Farm where we train. I’ve been cycling. I’ve been cycling for a couple hours today. I’m feeling okay. I’m studying and watching the race and trying to learn what I can so I’m going to be ready to rock and roll by this time next week.”
And Anstie is very much looking forward to climbing back on the YZ250F and bashing out the testing and training laps before looking to the next round he’ll be cleared to line up for.
“Tuesday I’ll be back on the bike,” Anstie explained. “So now I’m going to get to ride this week and get back to normal, let’s say. Yeah, we’ll be all right.”
Anstie was fully prepared to charge into the AMA Pro Motocross Championship, explaining, “It’s still a dream to be going into this outdoor season with the team and the bike that we have.”
Now, he will have to wait as he is out for this weekend’s race. Does he regret pushing the jump that caused the crash?
“Again, when I crashed, I wouldn’t have done anything different,” he confirmed. “I was sending it for a hot lap and I felt good. I didn’t feel like I did anything wrong. I just couldn’t see that there was something there. Again, everything happens for a reason. It is what it is. You’ve got to deal with disappointments in this sport. We get good at that. We have to learn to refocus and reframe and say, ‘Okay, what can I do now? What’s in my control? What’s important? What can I do?’ And that’s just the focus with recovery and getting back to it 100-percent. I think I’ll be back out on the gate. Okay, the championship is out the window, but let’s go and have some solid rides for the rest of the year. I’m not done yet on outdoors. I want to continue to do it, so let’s see how the rest of it all pans out.”
Anstie did have his eyes upon a return to racing at Saturday’s Thunder Valley Motocross Park in Lakewood, Colorado. Unfortunately, after this interview was completed, we learned he is OUT for this weekend’s race as well. Here is what Anstie said before news came out that he was out.
“Yeah, Colorado is cool,” he pointed out. “I like it, At the end of the day we’ve got altitude. It has been a while since I’ve raced there. All of these tracks are awesome in America. I love the supercross, but I also love the outdoors, too. I was watching Hangtown today on TV and saying to myself, ‘Man, how bad is it? Am I all right? Could I race today?’ It was one of those deals where you look at it and you say, ‘Oh, I want to be out there.’ Like I said, it’s all part of the plan. Obviously, it didn’t go to plan last week, but at the moment, everything is happening for a reason. I’m here just to recover and full focus on next weekend.”
“Yeah, we’ll be all right,” he continued. “Like I said, I’m looking forward to getting back into it at Colorado. [Again, before we knew he would miss this weekend’s race]. Then we go back East. We go to High Point and then it’s RedBud and those sorts of tracks which are awesome, awesome places on the calendar. They’re awesome tracks. I mean they’re iconic. From watching The Great Outdoors back in the day and watching Ricky Carmichael and James Stewart and Ryan Villopoto, it’s all iconic to me. As someone who grew up watching all those guys racing at all those places, it’s just cool to be a part of it. I’ve experienced so much, you know? I’ve raced all around the world, so to come to these tracks that are pretty awesome is all pretty special.”
“A lot goes into this,” he added. “A lot of the puzzle pieces have to fall together in the right way, and you also have to have a bit of luck. Yeah, I’m definitely putting my best foot forward. At the end of the day, you can’t focus on winning when you’re out there. You just have to focus on executing and doing your job. And if that’s enough to get the job done and win, then fantastic. If not, then you go back to the drawing board during the week and work at being better for the weekend after. Now it’s just one step at a time. I get back on the bike next week and let’s go racing in Colorado and get a base. Let’s just have two decent rides. Let’s get the ball rolling and get some information and some data on the bike and get some feel going and see were we are at and see what we need to work on and improve on and then we’ll hit it hard again at High Point and just continue to step up.”
