Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing’s RJ Hampshire’s 2023 Monster Energy Supercross campaign has been the best start to a season in his career, showing a wealth of consistency to go along with the blistering speed that we’re all aware of. He was granted the opportunity to step up to the 450SX class while his usual 250SX West series was on hold, where he impressed during his first showing in the premier class at Daytona. The 27-year-old features in this latest Five Questions feature.

Image: Octopi Media.

Is there anything you picked up racing in the 450 class?

The best way to practice is to race – [Jett Lawrence and Cameron McAdoo] weren’t racing and I was, so any knowledge that I could take away from that was going to be positive. Daytona was awesome, I don’t think many people expected me to ride like that. I was actually really sick for the two-weeks leading up to it, so I didn’t really feel well up until about Thursday this past week. I got back on the 250 and got my health back to being good and right away I felt awesome, I don’t know if it was from riding the 450 or what. We didn’t really change much on the bike, it is just so to replicate the 450 when you’re jumping back onto a 250, my riding style is completely different between the two bikes. It’s kind of all out on the 250.

What was it like getting that heat race win in Daytona?

I was pretty beaten up after Oakland, but I just told myself to pull it together and that we were going racing in Daytona. I think I had four days on the 450 leading up to Daytona, the last time I rode supercross on a 450 was probably about 2017, so I haven’t touched a supercross track on a 450 since then. The team were all for it, but the first couple of days on the bike were not good, then it came down to the few days before Daytona and I had my first good day on it, then Wednesday the team showed up and we did 30-40 minutes of testing and decided to go racing. You couldn’t have painted a better picture, that was an awesome experience and debut. I knew I wasn’t ready to battle for a main event win, but man it was cool. I was stoked the team gave me an opportunity.

Can you take us through the track conditions in Seattle and maybe compare it to past years?

Yeah, I just raced Indy, well I didn’t race but I did practice and this track had a lot of similarities, it got beat down so fast. I was first heat race out and they had kind of fluffed it up, but it went straight back to having deep ruts while the berms were actually kind of dry and slick, especially before the finish, so that made it hard to get into a flow.

Image: Octopi Media.

Did you find the Seattle layout was a hard track to pass on?

I struggled in the heat race, my start was bad, and I was still in sixth with like three laps to go. But, in the main event, I did pick some areas out, I had that line into the sand before the wall, but you had to almost catch the guy in front of you off guard to make it.

When you passed Cameron, was that a spot you had picked out, or did that opportunity just present itself and you made the most of it?

The first time, kind of, but the second time, I thought it was their last lap, my pit board said ‘two to go’ two laps before that. We kind of got side-by-side going down the whoops, I was sending it cause I thought it was the last lap and there was a lapper between us, I saw he wasn’t going to protect that inside so I squared up and went for it, but I thought that was the last corner, last lap so that’s why I went for it like that.