Image: Octopi Media.

Red Bull KTM’s Cooper Webb has been able to make a full recovery from his injuries sustained in Arlington, returning to 100 percent during the current downtime in Monster Energy Supercross.

The reigning 450SX champion suffered multiple hematomas in his fall at round eight back in February, but has benefited from the current break due to COVID-19.

Webb managed to soldier on through Atlanta and Daytona, scoring podium results of third in each main event to remain in championship contention as he attempts to make it back-to-back premier class titles.

“Dallas wasn’t ideal, so it kind of worked out with this little bit of a break to let the body heal and, as of right now, I’m feeling 100 percent,” Webb explained this week.

“I haven’t really done too much riding since all of this kind of happened – I’m just playing it by ear. But yeah, I’m definitely back to normal and ready to go whenever we get going.

“It’s a weird thing, you know, we’ve raced for a long time and this is the first time anything like this has happened. We’re used to hammering away at this time, so to have a break right now is definitely weird.

“It has been beneficial for me to let my body heal, take a little break and mainly just reset. Things are changing, it seems like weekly, so it will be interesting to see how we end up going from here.

“There will definitely be a different approach, I’m not right there in the hunt like Eli [Tomac] and Kenny [Roczen], so it will be a little bit different for me, I’m sure. It did happen at a good time for me at this point of the season.”

Currently 29 points in arrears of Monster Energy Kawasaki-mounted Tomac, with Roczen only three points behind him in second position, Webb is third in the standings and isn’t yet willing to count himself out of contention when the series resumes – potentially as soon as next month.

“If it’s seven races left and we’ve got seven, then I’m 29 back and it’s a bit of a steep climb, but just take it race-by-race, go out there and plug away,” he added.

“For me, the championship is still what we’d like to have, but a little bit far-fetched so we’ll just go out and do the best we can. It’d be sweet to hopefully get some wins and carry that into the next season.”

With May 15 expected to be the date of resumption if Feld Motor Sports can get Supercross of the ground again sooner, rather than later, Webb has said today that he is in favor of that method.

“As some of you know and have heard there’s an opportunity to go racing May 15th,” he posted on social media. “I’ve been asked my opinion and have been on the phone talking to multiple different people about it the last few weeks.

“As of April 17th it sounded like a go, but as of yesterday it is becoming questionable because some teams and riders feel there isn’t enough time to get ready. I’m blessed to be on KTM where we are always ‘Ready To Race’, but this had me thinking a bit.

“Feld is prepared to bring back employees, work with the riders and teams to have very limited amount of people at the venue and in the stadium, have multiple healthcare workers to check every single person’s temperature and symptoms every time we come into stadium, as well as to be the first sport back to action while practicing social distancing with some adjustments to the racing and schedule with, unfortunately, no fans allowed at stadium.

“I know myself and almost every person in our industry has had some pay deduction or even more extreme, been laid off until we are back racing. I feel as professional Supercross racers it’s our jobs to be ready to race and do our jobs whenever called upon.

“As of April 17th and, possibly prior, riders got told of the possibility of racing May 15, which made it fair to everyone to know that in four weeks we could be back racing. With bikes ready, SX settings we already have, the 26 weeks we’ve already done this year (off-season preparation) with 3-4 days of riding each of those weeks (approx. 95-105 days of riding SX), I feel like we should do our SX/MX community a favor and try to be ready to race.

“With that being said, it gives us an opportunity to grow our sport, give people jobs back and give all you fans a chance to see us race on TV while we do everything possible to stay safe, clean and do the proper testing to insure we don’t spread this virus. A bit of a rant, but that’s how I feel – what do you guy think?”