RJ Hampshire Talks About His Slide into Home and His Segment on the MLB Network

Perhaps no one had a wilder week in East Rutherford than Rockstar Husqvarna’s RJ Hampshire. RJ had quite the ending to the 250SX East/West Showdown when he power slid his way into the final turn in an attempt to pass Jett Lawrence for second. I called Hampshire up this week to discuss the race and the other highlight of the week, which was getting the chance to get interviewed on the MLB Network. We also discussed his new contract extension, which I’ll have for you next week!

Vurbmoto: I’m sure you’re tired of talking about it, but we’ve got to talk about the slide first. It was the highlight of the main event. Talk about how it went from your perspective.

Hampshire: Honestly, Jett [Lawrence] and I went back and forth a few times in the main event. It wasn’t like I just went and bonsaied the last corner. I think I got hung up by a lapper, maybe the lap before, so I knew that he put a couple of seconds on me on the last lap. I made a pretty big push there at the end. We got to the whoops and I had a pretty decent blitz line. At the end I didn’t even know that was [Max] Anstie, I just thought it was a lapper. I saw them kind of come together a little bit and at that point I’m like alright I’m in third place for the night. I have no shot at this. Then I get to the corner and I see him slide and he doesn’t get that drive coming down the straightaway. I was like ‘oh no, there might be a shot here’. He kind of looked back to see where I was and I don’t even think he realized that it was me. As soon as he gave me that look back I was like, alright I’ve got to give this a shot. As soon as I dodged right out of that main line it was like I hit ice. Dude, I had zero control over the brakes and it was like I picked up speed. So now, when I’m supposed to be braking, I’m almost going faster and I’m getting closer to the turn. My only option at that point was to save what I could from landing in the stands. Then everyone saw what happened after that. That was my only option at that point.

I watched it a couple of times. Yes, you did keep Jett close the entire race and you were right there at the end. You’ve looked at the comments on social media where people are accusing you of taking him out. If you watch racing, you can clearly tell that wasn’t the plan.

Yeah, I mean if I wanted to do that I had plenty of other chances to do that through the entire main event. I passed him clean. I think we passed each other back and forth a couple of times. If that was my goal then it could have been done plenty of times before. That was not my goal. I was trying to make passes there. I was guessing coming into that on what my bike was going to do and I hadn’t been inside there all race. I don’t think anyone had. I was pretty much guinea pigged for that one.

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At what point did you ditch your goggles?

Oh man, so realistically I don’t run rolloffs. I stick with tear offs as much as I can. The rain was coming down pretty bad, so I made the call for rolloffs. It was probably about halfway where I couldn’t see anymore. I tried to do a wipe over the triple and it made it worse. I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m not hitting these rhythms blinded’, it’s already sketchy enough. I wiped off the triple, did the next rhythm, and I could barely see anything. I went through the mechanics area and ditched the goggles. It was like I could see again. I had a new life in me! That stuff doesn’t really bother me. I was just glad that I could see again.

Then at the end there when you’re picking up your bike. You said that Jett popped the chain off?

Even though we did go down, he still picked his bike up and finished second. I could have easily got third or fourth still. It wasn’t like I was done. Worse case was his bike fell on top of mine and then when he went to get going his rear wheel went right over my chain and popped my chain off. I was trying to get it to go and I thought my bike was done because maybe it had overheated and upside down. I couldn’t even get the thing to budge. I was trying to push it and the rear wheel wouldn’t spin from the chain being wedged in there. Then there was no track guy around and I was the last guy out there. I saw one track dude across the track just watching me. There isn’t anyone out on the track at this point riding. I’m like ‘Dude! Can someone help me out here? I’ll be out here until the 450 main if you leave me out here.’

When I watched it back, the guy ate it, he fell, and then he got up and started staring at you. It’s funny that you mentioned that.

Oh, no way! Yeah, I saw him across the track and he’s sitting there watching me. Finally I just threw my hands up, like somebody got me some help. Get the dang tractor or something! This isn’t moving.

What was it like being on the MLB Network and how did that come about?

It was awesome. I’m pretty sure MLB reached out, or the PR team from Supercross had a connection to MLB. They wanted someone in the studio that had a connection to baseball. They reached out after Seattle. There was my feature that they showed and I guess no one knew that I played baseball before that. There were actually a few people in the industry that had no idea. One thing led to another and after Atlanta I was like 100% I will be there. I don’t care if I have to fly a couple days early. Man, I haven’t been nervous like that in a while. That studio was the real deal. I had the earpiece in and they were talking to me all along, they did my makeup, and they had some very big people in the MLB industry. It was super cool and I honestly couldn’t imagine that I would have the opportunity to go there and talk. To see the pictures of me racing all over the studio, the photos don’t show how big that actually was. It was unreal how sick that was.

The people watching didn’t know who I was, so I had to dumb down Supercross. I had to keep it entertaining for a baseball fan and drive them to want to be Supercross fans. I had no idea what they were even going to talk about. They didn’t warn me. They just said here’s the producer and you’re going to sit here. They bounce around very fast on that show. I didn’t realize how fast it actually is. When one segment ends those guys are running over to do another segment, they grab the chairs and there is a different film crew. It’s a lot going on and I had no idea how it was going to go. Rockstar was very happy with that whole deal.

Main image: Jessica Reed