Image: Octopi Media.

Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki’s Cameron McAdoo defied the odds in Tampa as he landed on the 250SX East podium despite tearing his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the week leading up to the race.

McAdoo started the day 12th in combined qualifying, before surprising with a P2 finish in his heat race, +3.457s behind heat race and main event winner, Max Anstie.

“Honestly, right after I had the crash, driving to get MRIs, I was like, I’ve torn my ACL,” said McAdoo. “I knew what I had going on and I just told my wife, I’m not going to count myself out yet.

“I just recently watched the Aaron Rodgers documentary on Netflix, and one of the beginning episodes after he tore his Achilles, he was just like, why can’t I leave the opportunity for a miracle to happen? And not saying me racing tonight was a miracle at all, but I kind of approached it with that mindset.

“[Racing] didn’t seem like it was going to be possible after the first couple of days. But we got a lot of swelling out of it and we were able to do some taping and I was like, ‘man, I think I’m like ready to go try to ride at the track. That was the only option after having some meetings with my team. It was the only way I was coming to race is if I could go ride on the track and ride safely. So we did that on Wednesday, and we were like, let’s go racing.”