Image: Octopi Media.

While he’s been able to run at the front of the 450MX class in the opening rounds of Pro Motocross, Adam Cianciarulo is still building fitness that will allow him to contend throughout entire moto’s following his injury in Supercross.

The Monster Energy Kawasaki rider has shown in the opening two rounds of the 2021 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross season that he’s got the pace to compete for wins, but hasn’t quite been able to put the pieces together so far this season.

“I think for me it’s just kind of getting back into the flow of racing,” Cianciarulo explained. “The race intensity, it’s difficult to mimic that in practice and I don’t think I’ve raced since February.

“It’s not like I had much of a base before that, you know I was not really doing a whole lot of riding this offseason. So just kind of getting back into the race condition.”

With two weeks off between rounds two and three, Cianciarulo will head back to Florida to get back to work in the heat, after a long stint in California ahead of the season.

“Clearly at the beginning of the moto, my speed’s good and I’m just really not strong enough at the end,” he continued. “I feel like I can go as fast as those guys but it’s just going to take more laps, more time, more races, and just more training during the week.

“I get [the next] two weeks in Florida, haven’t been to Florida in a while so that’ll be good, train in the heat and do all that good stuff, but really just getting more time on the bike.

Despite the level of fitness, Cianciarulo was able to put together a solid day at Thunder Valley for round two, taking home 3-6 moto scores, putting himself third overall.

“It feels really good to put together two solid motos and be up here on the podium,” he explained. “That little tip over in the corner wasn’t ideal, but today was still a good day overall.”

“Thank you to the entire Monster Energy Kawasaki team for getting my bike dialed this weekend. I’m looking forward to the weekend off and letting my body recover so I can come back stronger for High Point.”