Image: Octopi Media.

Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing’s RJ Hampshire indicated he felt good straight away in reverting to the quarter-liter platform for the resumption of 250SX West in Seattle, recovering from sickness in the build-up to Lumen Field after his debut in the premier class of Monster Energy Supercross.

Hampshire stepped up to 450SX for Daytona during the western region break, impressing to his win his first heat race onboard the FC 450 and later finishing P8 in the main event at round eight.

The number 24 was set to continue onboard the 450 in Indianapolis but ultimately called a premature end to his outing ahead of the night show due to sickness. However, when Hampshire was able to resume his Supercross preparations, by his account the time spent on the 450 didn’t negatively impact his performance in the switch back to the smaller capacity machine.

“The best way to practice is to race, so these guys weren’t racing and I was out there racing, so any knowledge that I could have taken, you know is going to be a positive,” said Hampshire. “Yeah Daytona was awesome, I don’t think many people really expected that, but for on the bike side, I was actually really sick for two and a half weeks leading up to it, so I didn’t really feel well, up till Thursday this week.

“I’ve been on the 250, but I got my health pretty good, and like right away I felt awesome so I don’t know if it was the 450 or what. We didn’t really change much, jumping back on to it, just so hard to replicate the 450 to the 250 because my riding style is completely different on that, I mean, yeah, it’s kind of all out on this 250.”

Hampshire qualified second fastest in 250SX West at Seattle and after finishing third in heat one, went on to finish second in the main event following a battle with Cameron McAdoo (Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki).

“I was kind of the opposite to Jett [Lawrence] tonight, like I felt like crap in practice and my heat race was terrible,” Hampshire continued. “In the main event, the opening laps weren’t that great, but then I found my lines and I was hitting my lines really well, and that’s when I was making that push after I passed Cam the first time.

“I was closing the gap a bit and what caused those two really bad laps I had were the lappers. Like my lines were good, but I couldn’t take those because that is where they were rolling. So just to switch those up, I need to be better at adapting to those lines and not just stick to mine.

“Once Cam got me I was like ‘I need to regroup here’, kind of settled back down and I rolled the rhythm, I don’t know why I did that, then I rolled the next double too, then I look up and I was like ‘dude I just gave him three or four seconds’.

“So, at that time I was like ‘I’ve got three laps to go’, then I had seen the board the next time through and it was two laps. I don’t know what the times were, but I feel like I made a pretty have push there and for how gnarly the track was kind of deteriorating, it was kind of all or nothing for me at that point.”

With the 23 points gained on Saturday, Hampshire is second in the championship standings, 23 points from red plate-holder Lawrence (Team Honda HRC) as four rounds remain in 250SX West.