Justin Barcia landed hard off a jump during the Supercross Nashville race, breaking two ribs, his collarbone and right shoulder.
Any other year, his title aspirations would be shot. The crash ended his supercross season with two races left and the recovery time from collarbone surgery meant he would get a late start to the outdoor motocross season.
However, the debut of the SuperMotocross (SMX) World Championship this year keeps Barcia in the mix for a title. With the points he earned in Supercross and a chance to return early in the motocross season, the 31-year-old rider can still qualify for the SMX playoff rounds and possibly win a world championship.
Photo: AP
“I’m nearly healed. I haven’t gotten back on the bike yet, playing it smart,” Barcia said on Thursday before the start of the motocross season this weekend in Pala, California. “I want to come back as soon as possible, but I know when I come back I’m going to throw down hard, so I need to be 100 percent healthy.”
The impetus for SMX came at a 2020 supercross race at Daytona, where Feld Entertainment vice president for supercross Dave Prater and other members of the company approached MX Sports Pro Racing about a partnership.
Plans for a combining the two series had to be shelved when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, but the collaboration allowed the supercross season to take place later in 2020 after motocross pushed back its season.
Feld Motor Sports and MX Sports Pro Racing kept working behind the scenes and in August last year announced the formation of the SMX World Championship, which combines points from the two series to set up playoff and world championship rounds.
In the past, Feld did its own thing, independently running the supercross series. MX Sports Pro Racing did the same with motocross, the two similar-but-different sports never overlapping.
The creation of SMX allowed supercross and motocross to combine resources to expand, promote and attract a better TV package for the two series.
“For me, it’s exciting to see the industry get excited about it, the fan base get excited about it,” Prater said. “Supercross just finishing up a couple weeks ago and motocross now seems to be benefitting from the relationship and the positive vibe that’s getting out there.”
It also had a very lucrative benefit.
Supercross and motocross are variations of the same sport with the same riders, teams and, in most cases, fans, yet had different sponsors and TV deals.
The melding of metal between the dirt bike series piqued the interest of NBC Sports and Peacock, leading to a large investment in the sports. The two series opted to push the money toward the riders and the teams to create the largest prize package in the sport’s history.
This year’s SMX season has a season-long purse of US$10 million, with US$5.5 million of that in the SMX playoffs and US$1 million to the 450cc champion.
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