Houston, TX (March 30, 2019) – GEICO Honda’s RJ Hampshire bounced back in a big way at the Houston Supercross on Saturday night, ending a recent slump with strong rides in all three Triple Crown main events in Texas, carrying 3-2-4 scores to second overall. It’s a career-high finish for Hampshire in supercross and his first trip to the podium since his rookie year in 2015.
“Yeah it was good, my rookie year I made pretty big strides forward, then I had that TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) at the end of my rookie year,” Hampshire said, referencing a huge crash and concussion suffered in October of 2015. “It kind of set me back, and honestly (since then) I’ve been just known only as an outdoor guy, really, people just kind of wrote me off on supercross. I feel like I was in a good spot coming into the year, and the first couple of races were decent, I had good speed, and then I kind of fell into a slump, I don’t even think I had a top five the last four races. It was rough. Made some changes this week with the bike, huge improvements. I had good starts all night and that just kind of led to good finishes. I didn’t do anything special all day, I just kind of rode.”
Hampshire rebounds back up to fourth in 250SX West points.
“This week I spent it in California, we tested outdoors a few days and then focused on the supercross issues we had on Thursday,” Hampshire added. “First two main events I rode pretty decent, I was stronger in the whoops. In the final main, I think maybe because I knew where I was in the points, I let up in the whoops. It wasn’t pretty after that, but, like I said, stoked on the night.”
Also stoked was Hampshire’s GEICO Honda teammate Cameron McAdoo, who scored sixth overall with 9-6-5 finishes. He had to log some gritty rides after chaos early in the first two main events. In the first race, McAdoo nailed the holeshot but tagged a tuff block just moments after the first turn and went down. In race two he was shoved from the inside and forced straight into more tuff blocks and then the stadium wall. For McAdoo, though, supercross is still a learning process, and he’s happy with his riding.
“Houston had lots of positives again for me!” said McAdoo. “My starts were awesome but then something happened each time in the first two races. Unfortunately, the first main, I had the holeshot but then I hit a tuff block and went down, then in the second one I got pushed off the track into the wall. I had to come from last in the first two mains, but our speed was there, and then the last race was solid. I ended up going 9-6-5 for sixth overall. Definitely seeing improvements every weekend!”
The 250SX West riders take a brief break as 250SX East resumes this coming weekend in Nashville, with Chase Sexton resuming his championship chase there for the team. West racing resumes in Denver in two weeks.
GEICO Honda Results
Houston Supercross
March 30, 2019
2. RJ Hampshire
6. Cameron McAdoo
