RJ Hampshire ended a rollercoaster of a year by battling through illness in the last three rounds of the 2021 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross season. The Rockstar Energy Husqvarna rider managed to claim a podium to cap his season as he looks toward 2022.

Image: Octopi Media.

Powering through illness over the last few rounds…

It’s been brutal, it honestly kind of started at Unadilla. If you remember I kind of faded both motos and that’s out of the ordinary for me. I just really was kind of searching, I didn’t really know what was going on. The Tuesday after Unadilla was the last practice day I’ve had that I did legit motos, and I felt like I was dying after that. So it’s been a long three weeks of just kind of trying to recover. It seems like Friday is my lowest heart rate day, and I feel the best I do, then Saturday race day comes and I’m right back in the same situation. If I would have timed the sickness a little bit better to have it during the break, that would have been easier on me, but it’s just kind of been a hurt locker the last three weeks. It’s been brutal, I’m used to suffering but man it’s been tough.

Details on the illness… 

I’ll just be honest, I thought for sure I had covid. I went and got tested three times and they all came back negative. It was rough for I’d say two weeks, where I had no energy, I would just literally come home and pass out. I was on all the meds to try to kill it or cure it or whatever to do, but I was still testing negative so that’s why I was still racing. I didn’t really know what was going on and it just attacked my lungs pretty bad. I couldn’t breathe, I’m struggling to get deep breaths. I would go out for practice and I’d do two laps and I’m smoked, that’s it. So it was literally just adrenaline for the motos, that’s how I was able to even finish one moto, it just kind of kept me going. At Pala I puked in my helmet with like four laps to go and that one was gnarly. I’ve had a lot of suffers but man that one was brutal. Then today I puked last lap, but it’s all from lack of oxygen getting in. I just don’t feel like I can breathe fully and man it’s been tough. I felt like I should have been back to normal after the first week, but having to race on the weekends you just keep drilling yourself.

The plan coming into Hangtown… 

To be honest with you we were coming in with a plan, because I didn’t do anything all week. Dr. G and I talked, he called me Monday and he saw how bad I was last weekend and he was like ‘look I think if you want to race this weekend, we plan on going out and trying to win one moto then reevaluate everything.’ That second moto I didn’t even know if I was going to have anything left. So that’s kind of where I was at in my mindset, I was going to go as hard as I could for as long as I could.

Image: Octopi Media.

That final push in moto one to try to catch Justin Cooper…

I got to right around 20 minutes, I made another push and made a mistake. I bit my tongue pretty bad at the bottom and then I was like man look if we’re going to try to fight for an overall podium I need to save myself a little bit. Yeah I was definitely hurting [after the mistake] but I was more trying to save myself for the second moto. I saw Hunter [Lawrence] was coming there at the end so I kind of had to pick my heartrate back up which didn’t end up too well.

Team USA not going to MXoN… 

They had the three guys picked and we had a big meeting about it right before Pala. I mean, man, I’m born and raised American and would love to represent my country. When I got the call I was in, yes let’s do it. Then, honestly, I thought the sickness would be gone by now. The other two guys that were on the team are also struggling with their own kind of deals, then with the restrictions that came up, there was just no way we were going to be at our best or it was going to be safe or for it to even make sense for us to go. It’s the end of our season and with how I’m doing and my family, I would want my family to be a part of that. So I just straight up said look if we test positive and we test positive [while at MXoN] and we’re stuck in a hotel room for 12 days or whatever it is, that’s just not fair for any of us. For the team too – the day we announced we weren’t going, all the hotels, all of our bikes, everything had to be sent out. Even the paddock, the restrictions over there weren’t even for sure until the following week. We didn’t know [anything] so it was just a full-on deal, none of us thought it was a good idea. I mean yeah, I hope I have a shot to do it again next year, like I said I’d love to represent the country.

Rating yourself on the 2021 season…

I came into the season a little bit behind, just from my injury from Supercross. The plan all along was to get through the first couple rounds out west and get it going when we come east to High Point. That was exactly what we were doing we set ourselves up for a moto win, I had two laps left at High Point and that was very deflating to have the chain snap with two laps to go in one of the best motos that I’ve had. Then, of course, yeah I won RedBud but it wasn’t great, I broke my thumb there, but like you said I had 11 or 12 moto podiums this year and scored my most points [ever in a season], so can’t be disappointed too much. Just stoked on what we showed and I was able to finish it off, that was a big one to finish the entire season.