Hampshire on Wrist Injury “If I had to race A1 it wouldn’t have gone well, I wasn’t in a good spot”

Loads of storylines to follow entering the 250SX East Region opener. Unfortunately, most are surrounding injuries.

As we learned today, Cameron McAdoo is dealing with a torn ACL. RJ Hampshire is coming off a wrist injury and Chance Hymas is working back from an off-season knee surgery.

In the pre-race press conference held on Friday, Hampshire talked about his injury and where he feels like he’s at heading into the opener.

“Yeah and it’s not just the injuries, a lot happened,” he said. “But, man, I’m confident where I am now. The last few weeks have gone really well. If I had to race A1 it wouldn’t have gone well, I wasn’t in a good spot. I feel good on the bike but I’ve accepted the fact that I’m going to have some pain in my wrist, but we all have something. My injury is public theirs isn’t.”

At times this off-season, there was hope Hampshire could make it back for Anaheim 1 to defend his 250SX West Region title, but as he said in the press conference, there was no chance he was racing the opener.

“If you saw me ride the two weeks before A1 you’d know there’s no chance,” he said. “I was doubling stuff just to get back on the bike. My surgery wasn’t just a small one, they had to take the screw out and put a plate in and start the whole process we had started in June. Our plan was to race West but that wasn’t a realistic situation.”

The 250SX East Region is loaded with talent, including defending champion Tom Vialle.

“Mentally I feel like Tom [Vialle] and I were the only ones who were able to put it together and get it done when the time comes,” Hampshire said. “Last year was a great test for myself to be put in position. You don’t know if you can do it until that time comes. Man there’s a lot of good guys out here though.”

Main image: Husqvarna