It was a challenging weekend for Team Honda HRC’s Chance Hymas at Washougal as he battled a severe ankle sprain suffered at the Spring Creek National. Despite crashing off the start in the second 250MX moto, Hymas charged to an 8-12 day for P9 overall when he wasn’t even sure he’d line up.

The damage to his ankle occurred during first turn contact with Haiden Deegan at Spring Creek where his foot was sucked into Deegan’s front tire. Deegan crashed, but Hymas stayed up and pulled off the track two turns later.

After examining the damage during the week, it was revealed that Hymas had several minor torn and pulled ligaments in his ankle and foot. With nothing broken, Hymas and the team made the decision to go to Washougal and give it a go.

As he fought through the pain all day, it seemed like things were going alright, until he crashed in the second turn of moto two. He hobbled back to his bike slowly and got up way behind the pack. From there, he put his head down and had an unbelievable charge from P40 to P12 in the moto.

“After first practice, I was ready to hang up the helmet,” said Hymas. “I was in a lot of pain and Doc G [Dr. Rey Gubernick] helped me out a bunch and got my ankle working pretty good for the second practice and gave me a little bit of help. I was like, ‘I mean I’m here. I need to try. Whether I pull off or not, I at least need to line up and try.’ Adrenaline works really good. I made do with what I could in the first moto and tried not to push at the beginning and actually picked up some positions at the end of the moto with people fading a little bit.

“Second moto, crashed off the start, tweaked my bad knee, tweaked my bad ankle, two opposite legs. So I was sitting there stumbling trying to get to my bike and it took me like three laps trying to figure out my life. I just put my head down and rode my heart out and, once again, adrenaline works really good. I got my way back up from dead last to 12th. So, 8-12 on the day, on a day that I wasn’t even sure I was going to race.”

After the Spring Creek incident, Hymas dropped from P2 to P4 in the standings and was just a few points ahead of his teammate Jo Shimoda. With a two-weekend break coming after the Washougal National, the potential was there for Hymas to skip Washougal and get almost a full month off before returning to racing at Unadilla.

But Hymas was not keen to allow more points to slip away from what has been a remarkably good season thus far. And even when he crashed in the second moto, Hymas explained that getting into the points was the only thing on his mind.

“I was in a lot of pain, but I was like, ‘Man, I need to ride through this,’” said Hymas. “Obviously not to do something stupid and crash again, but I was like, ‘I at least need to get one point, whether it’s just 20th or something.’ One point could make a difference in the long run. I also know if I got it going that the adrenaline was going to kick in. I could get in a flow and the pain would kind of wear off a little bit. It was more just the end of the Moto. The fatigue from overcompensating for one leg and using my upper body. My body is shot right now. It was a grind for sure.”

Team Honda HRC team manager Lars Lindstrom said Hymas’ foot had not swelled too badly after the seven days between Spring Creek and Washougal, but it was badly bruised. When asked after the race if the swelling came back, Hymas said he was unsure as his foot and ankle were taped up tight all day long, so he hadn’t even seen the injury since the morning.

The points he gained on the day were enough to keep him P4 in the standings by four points over Shimoda as he now slips to 16 points behind Levi Kitchen. Hymas plans to use this time off as much as possible to rehabilitate the ankle as close to 100% as he can before the Unadilla National.

“After today, I might need to see if they can push Unadilla back another weekend,” said Hymas jokingly. “I might need an extra weekend. Definitely no riding this week and maybe the next week just to see how my ankle does. I’ll try to take as much time off as I can and do whatever I need to do to get my ankle ready.”