Lindstrom on Jo Shimoda’s Injury, Recovery, and Timeline for Return to Racing: "SMX is the goal"

Following the Spring Creek National, Honda HRC Progressive team manger Lars Lindstrom gave an update on Jo Shimoda's injury suffered at the Southwick National last weekend.
Shimoda had a crash in qualifying at Southwick and it sidelined him for the motos, effectively ending his championship hopes before he even got to race a single moto with the championship leading red plate on his Honda CRF250R.
Lindstrom said initially it was tough to tell whether Shimoda actually had broken his collarbone or not, with the bone already having a plate installed from a previous injury. Shimoda actually tried to ride on Wednesday before noticing something did not feel right still. After another scan, it was determined there was a break in the collarbone and in order to keep the bone strong for the time being, Shimoda and the Honda crew decided to let it heal over the next four to six weeks instead of putting in another plate on the bone.
Lindstrom explained the situation and said while it is possible Shimoda could return at the very end of the AMA Pro Motocross Championship, but that the Monster Energy SuperMotocross World Championship Playoffs are the big goal.
Here is Lindstrom’s update on Shimoda:
“It was the oddest thing that I've been a part of I think as far as a physical injury. It was at the track at Southwick, the Alpinestars medical guys saw a break in his collarbone, and he went to the hospital because of his concussion just to make sure that everything was okay, which it was. And when they were there, they took a different X-ray and they said it [collarbone] was broken also, but it was hard to see. Then we couldn't really see it. Jo's agent and him couldn't really tell. Felt pretty good. Didn't feel like it was ... It felt like it hurt, but it wasn't like if you break your collarbone and it's broken in two pieces, you know it. There's no real question there. But since he already had a plate there from a previous injury, it was kind of hard to tell. So, they went and got a CT scan done and in the CT scan it came back from the radiologist and said, ‘Your bone's not broken.’ So, then we were like, ‘Whoa.’ This is Monday and we were like, ‘Maybe he can ride.’ It could have been Tuesday, maybe. And so, we were ecstatic. We thought that he could be back. He actually suited up and rode on Wednesday and tried. And when he rode, he could ride. It felt okay but when he hit any jump, it was pretty big pain. When that happened, he's like, ‘Something's wrong. It can't be this way.’ So, he went to a different doctor. This is like the fifth guy by the way. And they went to a specialist, and he looked at the X-ray and he could see that there was a break underneath the plate. It's not a complete dislocation or the bone's not completely separated, but it is broken and it's basically like a splinter sticking up. So, the odd part about was that he already had the plate with six screws in it, three on each side. So, to fix it and try to come back, they would've had to remove all those, which means that there's six empty holes from the bones that need to heal. And they can't put another plate over that. The whole thing would be super brittle and it'd be compromised. There wasn't really much they could do other than, ‘Hey, you got to wait four to six weeks.’ And so that's kind of how that ended. We were hopeful and he was going to get the concussion protocol because his head felt good. And then that kind of just died. So, it was a little bit of a bummer.”
Lindstrom added that SMX is the goal for Shimoda to return to racing.
“SMX is the goal,” said Lindstrom. “We'll see if we're feeling better in the amount of time it takes to ride maybe the last couple of rounds of motocross, but right now I think the focus is going to be SMX.”
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You can watch the full segment with Lindstrom in the post-race press conference below, starting 44:47 mark:


