Page 20 - GRIT-80

RJ HAMPSHIRE
250 MX / 5TH
IMAGE / LANG WORDS / MATTINGLY DESIGN / MOTOPLAYGROUND
>> In preparation for the AMA National Series, both man and machine have to be tuned
to the fullest extent. It’s a battle of both sprinting and attrition, with the two being coupled together when a championship is produced. RJ Hampshire understands what it takes to be on this level, with his past history of both professional races and amateur champion- ships padding his resume. He knows that the race is truly won within the weeks leading up to the event, with constant recycling of both visualization and con dence being churned repetitively throughout his mind and body. He would do the ordinary in preparation for High Point, as each day his mine would wake up to an envisioning of a solid nish, the crowd cheering in his ear. Walking him step by step through this scenario throughout quali cation, it was a matter of simply putting his will to win to the test, once the moto’s came around. Pushing forward early on, he found himself in tenth on lap one. The towels would be waving, and he noticed his pit board sticking out, beside all others. Reiterat-
ing the notion to keep pushing, he just continued to pile on the shifting of the gears. The transmission was in constant motion, along with his racing position; near Jordon Smith, the two were beginning to pace each other, as the scraped into the depths of the valley. Launching out with the step-up double, the G forces could truly be felt within his core, his abdominals bracing just to stay upright. Fighting both track and competition, the two would begin to mesh as a unit, as he looked to funnel forward down this barrel of over thirty minutes of intense action. With Dylan Ferrandis at his rear, it looked as if the storm from behind might close in and dampen his parade. However, that was not to be the case, and he would come across the line seventh. The pin would then fall for moto number two, and it was an all out dash to the rst turn. Four and ve wide around the opening bend, it was a matter of staying clean and on track, while the eld began to sort themselves out. Roll- ing over the anthill on the rst few laps, he would shave each possible fraction of airtime, with a icking of the left wrist. After a constant ow of continuation, he and Brandon Har- tranft would link up. And by any means necessary, he would lunge for the seventh place position. The timer would wind down, and it would actually come to fruition, as he crossed the line in seventh place. That fth place overall he dreamt about earlier in the week, was now under his name in the record books.
20 GRITMOTO • JUNE 17, 2018