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It’s time to truly investigate whether or not the Pro Circuit Curse is real or not. I’m not a superstitious person normally, but I won’t be running the #13 anytime soon, but I would like to ride for Pro Circuit despite their bad luck as of lately.
Every team in the pits has had an ebb and a flow of success through the years, but the Pro Circuit team is in it’s longest title dry spell in its history. The last time Mitch Payton and crew won a title was in 2019 with Adam Cianciarulo’s Pro Motocross Championship. The last time that they won a Supercross championship was in 2017 with Justin Hill in the West Region.
Since those championship winning season, Pro Circuit has won races, but as of late they’ve been few and far between. In fact, had Jo Shimoda not won the overall at the Ironman National then it would have been the first time that Kawasaki had been shutout on wins since the early 1980s.
The riders that Mitch has hired have obviously had the talent to win races and championships, but for some reason or another the injury bug has hit the team very hard over the last handful of seasons.
Now after an incredible start to the season and holding both of the point’s leads on each coast, the Pro Circuit team lost all of it in one straightaway into the East/West Showdown in Nashville. In fact it made it even more peculiar when it was the two teammates Cameron McAdoo and Levi Kitchen coming together to crash.
McAdoo was already suffering from a bum shoulder from his practice crash and this put him over the limit. He called it a night and his championship chances are far from over, but he’s now down 16-points to Tom Vialle and he’s got Haiden Deegan ahead of him as well. He’d have to jump those two, but what concerns me is that he’s going to have a shoulder injury to deal with as well.
The Chef is only down two-points to RJ Hampshire. Kitchen put in an incredible ride coming from way back in last to 14th on the night with a rib injury. He’s still in the hunt as well, but we don’t know how racing with this rib injury is going to go. We’re still waiting to hear the extent of his injury.
The point is, things were going to great for the Pro Circuit team this season. You can even look at Austin Forkner, who crashed out of the series a round in. This could have been his year…again. Just when you think this team will get momentum, things go off the rails.
Is the Pro Circuit Curse real? It sure looks that way at the moment. The team with 199 race wins in its history is now all of a sudden struggling with only a couple rounds left in each title fight.
Still, if you’re a PC fan, don’t give up hope. These guys could still potentially be just fine when it comes to their next races. Kitchen still has a great shot at bringing this home and like he said, “It ain’t over yet.”
Main Image: Octopi Media
Seems that Mitch didn’t make his payment to the dark overlord on time