Ciao, Tony! Thanks For Stopping By

Let’s not be sad it’s over, let’s be happy it happened.

Okay, I lied. I’m sad. 

Tony Cairoli’s time in America is over for now. The nine-time World Champion, who retired from full-time racing last year, came over to America for what was only supposed to be the first two rounds, but he ended up doing the first four and it was awesome. 

“Time to go back home,” he wrote on Instagram. “Super experience even it was difficult without a proper preparation I enjoyed allot the opening rounds of the @promotocross thanks American fans and @ktmusa @ktmfactoryracing for making it possible and for give me the best support.”

This wasn’t THE TONY! Yeah, he was awesome, but he even admitted he wasn’t in his regular shape entering the season. And, hey, who could blame him…. He’s retired!

Either way, he was still awesome going 7-6-5 at the opening three rounds. Over the weekend at High Point, Tony’s hurt his knee in the first moto when he tried to pull this pass on Christian Craig….

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He tried to line up for moto two and damn near pulled the holeshot from the outside. But his knee just wasn’t right, so he pulled off eventually. 

“I look forward to this race because the track I really like,” he said. “In practice this morning, I felt better than the previous race, of course the pace was much better and we worked a little bit on speed this week, so the feeling was good. First moto, the start was okay with sixth on the first lap and I knew I needed to attack to win some positions but I made a mistake and touched together with another rider and I put down my knee really hard. I felt it immediately because this knee is giving me some trouble already and it was a big hit. It started swelling up and fluid inside, so I pulled off. Second moto, I was last off the start because it’s a different format than in GPs and I was a little surprised at the silly mistake I did and I had to line up on the outside, which is not the ideal place to start. With the knee in this condition, I couldn’t really pull a good start and then I was out of the top-20. I got back up to 13th but I was struggling a lot with my knee, so I decided it’s not really a good day, let’s move on. We had a good time here. For sure I would like to end up in a different situation but it’s okay. We are not hurt so bad, just a bad day.”

While it appears over for now, something tells me we might see the 222 over here again. Motocross of Nations, anyone!?!!?

Main image: KTM Images