Image: Octopi Media.

Max Anstie made his much-anticipated return to Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing at Southwick, but the day did not go to plan. After having his best lap time deleted in qualifying for failing sound inspection, Anstie did not finish the first moto due to what he described as a metal rod getting stuck in his wheel.

Anstie would rebound in the second moto to finish P9 after coming through the field due to his bad gate pick. It certainly didn’t go the way Anstie, nor the team, drew it up for their first race together in 14 years, but Anstie is excited about what lies ahead.

“It was quite a welcome back to the outdoors,” said Anstie. “In the first moto, I was in the mid-pack carnage and got a metal rod stuck in my wheel somehow, so that was the end of that race. In the second moto I had the 39th gate pick, so I just wanted to click off the laps and ended up getting ninth. The second moto was solid and a good bit of learning for me and the team.

“That’s the reason why I’m here – to make progress going into next season. There’s no magic formula. Right now I’m jumping in the deep end; everything’s new, everything’s different, and I’m learning the team and how the bike works. Hopefully, we can be a little bit better next weekend and keep this progression going so that next year, I’m firing on all cylinders for outdoors. So yeah, we’re just figuring all those things out and ironing out all the kinks.”

His wild day earned him P13 overall. The last time Anstie raced a 250 in AMA Pro Motocross was at the 2010 Washougal National where he finished P38 overall going DNF-DNS on the day.