Sexton Ready to Rumble

Red Bull KTM's Chase Sexton disappeared, suddenly, at round one of the Pro Motocross Championship. The 2024 450 National Motocross Champion had a goggle malfunction immediately in moto one, then crashed, then left the race track. He's finally back now, for round six at RedBud. Was Sexton hurt, burned out or both?

We spoke to him at press day today.

Racer X: How much of this was a physical break or a mental break? Both? What's the percentage?
Chase Sexton: I would say it's both. I was dealing with some lingering stuff, not like an injury, but more like with my body, probably even before supercross. Then going through 17 rounds you kind of like you get worn down and nothing seems to get fixed and it gets a little bit worse and then going outdoors it was worse. I had that crash and then I'm like, well, I'm 50 points out now at this point, I might as well just take the time off and. People don't really realize they only get a month off really after the season's over, so it's not that much time to really digest and like fix some problems. So I was able to use that to my advantage and take that time off and now we're back. Trying to get some SMX points.

Okay. So you weren’t like “Bro, I just want a break”?
No! I want to race dirt bike. I didn't miss one race, watching. I watched every one of them, all day.

Nobody does that! Nobody watches when they’re out!
I mean I'm still super motivated. I'm not over racing by any means. I love riding my dirt bike and when I got back on the bike, I feel like…not that I was not missing it, but I kind of forgot how much fun I had riding. When I got back on the bike, I'm like, yeah, this is where I like to be.

And I've heard there's been some testing. This bike is not what it was at round one.
Yeah totally different from round one. So now we're kind of back to where we were last year.

Well, okay then, everyone on earth is gonna say, ‘Why didn't you just do that in the first place?”
[Laughs] I was asking myself the same question. Me and Tom [Vialle]. Tom and I both changed complete setups from last year. I was watching his bike on TV, and I'm like "Dude, we gotta go back to our old stuff. It ain't working.”  And he went back last weekend and it was way better.

Yeah that first moto last week, he was hauling, his best ride of the year probably. Okay, so you're back to more the title year set up. Also, you mentioned SMX points. So you do think about this?
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to go back too far. I’d like to be top five, and if I would have taken more time off, I would have been back farther. I mean, it's kind of a little sneaky move by MX Sports and them. I think they thought about this when they did this whole SMX thing, like, let's get the guys [riders to come] back. Because a lot of the times people in my position probably wouldn't have came back. So it's kind of a smart move by them to get people back. The outdoor series has been strong since they brought in SMX.

Compare yourself now to when you came back here in 2023. Are you in a better spot? Back then, you were rebuilding more, physically, from a concussion and stuff.
Yeah, and I kind of underestimated the last time I came back. For tomorrow, I don't really have any high expectations. I mean, yeah, I think my riding's been good and I know I'm what I'm capable of, but it's gonna take some time to kind of build back. I think in ‘23 I kind of expected to be like right back to normal, automatically. I’ve got to get off to good starts. That’s what I’ve been really focusing on. Just from watching the races, it's crazy the difference when you watch a race and you can really see the difference between being out front. When you're in it, you don't really know. So, I was trying to work on some small stuff and the bike, obviously, but I've been riding a lot, too. I rode a lot last week, a lot of motos, so I think I'm ready to go.

But you're aware that coming back five races in, it might not be perfect.
It's not easy. I haven’t been racing. But that being said, I think if I can get a good start and put myself out front, I'll pick it up pretty quick, I think. I think I'll be back to normal. But we'll see.