Slaw Dog
As of now, it doesn’t appear that Honda HRC Progressive’s Jo Shimoda will miss any time after sustaining two broken fingers after hitting a pit board in qualifying in San Diego.
Despite the injury, Shimoda lined up at round 2 and qualified for the night show where he somehow finished 7th, keeping his championship hopes alive. The winner of the season opener at Anaheim 1 is currently seven points back of Julien Beaumer in the West Region title chase.
In Honda’s post-race press release, Shimoda and team manager Lars Lindstrom commented on the injury and it appears, as of now, that he will race at round 3 of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship this weekend at Anaheim 2.
“Overall it’s good to score a little bit of points” said Shimoda. “Obviously I ended the night with two broken fingers, but I’m looking to get a little recovery and hopefully be a little better next weekend.”
Lindstrom added: “Today was a challenging day for the team, with Hunter being very under the weather, and Jo having his incident in practice that broke two fingers on his left hand. Overall, I’m extremely proud of our athletes, for really gritting their teeth and showing everyone what warriors they are. Obviously, the biggest story from the weekend is our 450 boys really turning things around from last weekend, and I want to thank our crew, who were able to get the bike in a better spot than it was. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t stressing about the bike’s performance like some in the media were, because we have such a great team that works together so well, and I had complete confidence in them. Hopefully we can get Jo to be able to get through the next two rounds, so he can heal up more and continue to be a frontrunner in the class. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.”
There are two more rounds of the 250SX West Region–Anaheim 2 and then Glendale–before the series turns to the East Region Feb 8 in Tampa.
Main image: @octopi.media
