Hampshire: "Everyone always says they’ll do whatever it takes to win a championship. Well, I did it."

I could not believe how quickly you were making up time. When you got that horrible start, it was like, "Okay, RJ’s out of it." Then a few minutes in it was like, "Never mind, he’s not out of it!"
[Laughs] Yeah that’s kind of how the whole season went. "He’s out. No, he’s back in. Oh, he’s out. Nope, he’s back in." That’s how it was in that main event. I was taking some pretty big risks through the rhythms. Making those passes, a lot of the guys aren’t making the same rhythms the guys in front are. Those first couple laps I had some calls that were very close. But I knew that’s what I had to do to make sure I still had a shot at this thing.

Yeah, it’s the last race of the year.
Yeah, and I was at the point where, I’ve been dealing with this wrist [Note: Hampshire had surgery on his wrist on Monday] all season, and I didn’t care how it was going to feel during the week, or the next weekend. It all came down to this main event and I was going to give whatever I had left.

We all know what happened when you passed Hammaker. On Instagram you mentioned having to make a decision you wished you didn’t have to make. Tell us about your thought process coming into that corner. Did you have anything planned out? Or did it just happen?
Any racer in that situation knows what I was going through. I passed 12-13 guys leading up to that position and I’d seen what was going on in the earlier laps. I made an aggressive pass and we both ended up going down. But did you not see the four other guys, two laps before that all slamming each other? The only difference was that we both went down. Some of the calls they were making were just as bad as mine, it just so happens mine didn’t work out.

It was coming so fast, and if you rewatch it I made the pass on JuJu [Beaumer] two corners before that, and I get a better run than Seth through the whoops. I’m on the outside and I didn’t plan on going for a pass yet, I’d just caught up to him. He doesn’t expect me to be there, he just passed JuJu also. He doesn’t expect me to be there. I really wish it didn’t open up the way it did. I set up that final corner before the finish, I cut down and I really wish he didn’t come out a little bit wider than I expected. As soon as that happened that inside was open, and I took a shot. Everyone always says they’ll do whatever it takes to win a championship. Well, I did it. I was the guy. I take full accountability for it. The outcome of it was terrible, and I’m sorry to my team, to Seth and Mitch [Payton], and their whole team. I’m sorry for the outcome of it. But I’m not going to apologize for making the decision to go for it. How many people have said they’ll do whatever it takes to win a championship? I was just the guy who happened to be in the position to go for it. If you know anything about my career, that’s how it’s always been. I’m going to go for it if it’s there.

Yeah, 100 percent.
Yeah, and I really wish it hadn’t turned out how it did. It couldn’t have happened to a better dude. Everyone on that gate, Seth is the last person I would have wanted to be in a position to have to make that decision with. It was a tough call and there were a lot of things going on in that main event. I think the fans got what they wished for. We of course didn’t, but also, that’s racing.

Well, if you don’t go for it people are going to say, "I can’t believe he didn’t go for it. I would do anything for a title." But then you do go for it and people say, "What was he thinking?"
Another thing people don’t realize, Seth had just passed JuJu and Tom. Why would I leave it up to someone else when I’m trying to win this championship? If I just make that pass on Seth and he just rides right behind me, which is most likely what would have happened because he was faster than the other two, I still lose that championship. I’m not going to leave it up to someone else [Beaumer or Vialle to pass Hammaker] and hope it works out. It was up to me. People don’t realize how close that pass was to actually working out. People say I wasn’t even going to make the corner, but I was fine. The only thing I might have done differently, and it would have been a lot dirtier, if you go for a T-bone or something like that where you have more contact on Seth. But he is more likely to get hurt like that, rather than just trying to take his front wheel out, which is what I was trying to do. I went underneath him, took his front wheel out and his bike laid on top of mine and got connected. We can look back at it now and wish we’d done things differently, but if you put me in that position again most likely you’re going to get the same kind of attempt.

Looking back at things after the fact, I’m not always a fan of because it’s not the same as being in the moment. Afterward you already know what happened, there’s no adrenaline or anything. It’s not the same.
Yeah, exactly. I felt terrible, and who wouldn’t? I didn’t even want to come out of the rig after that. I sat in there for a while talking with the guys. My initial thought was that I needed to go talk to Mitch [Payton] and just apologize or something. So that’s what I did. I walked over there out of respect for Mitch. He’s someone I’ve always had massive respect for. So, I went over there, and I was a man about it. I admitted it, and I apologized for the outcome. But I also said, "If you had your rider in that position, wouldn’t you want him to go for it?" Initially he thought all I had to do was pass Seth and I would have won the championship, so when I first walked over there it was not going good, which I expected. I’d just cost his team a championship. But I explained I couldn’t just make a pass on him, I had to have someone between us to win the championship. I think it was a little better after that. I don’t think he really accepted my apology, which is to be expected. But out of respect to him I wanted to go talk with him about it. Hopefully down the road we can mend the relationship. Same with Seth, too. If I was Seth, I wouldn’t want to talk to me either, which is why I didn’t make an effort to. Hopefully down the road we can talk it out, and hopefully he can see where I was coming from. 

I interviewed Hammaker after the race and he was surprisingly calm. The impression I got from him was that he didn’t understand why you would make that move when there was still time left in the race. He didn’t expect it that early.
Yeah, he didn’t expect it. And we only had three laps to go, so it’s not like we had that much time left. If we wait one more lap and he knows I’m there, he protects all of his insides and doesn’t make that mistake he made when he left that inside open. Or for instance, what JuJu was doing to him, after the big triple when they were running into each other, all they were doing was standing each other up. If I did that then he funnels in right behind me and that wouldn’t have been enough for the championship.

Overall, Seth is a great dude, and it sucks to be in that position. I’ve said it my whole career and I said it even on Friday, I pray I’m not in that situation where I have to make that decision, and sure enough, there I was. It didn’t turn out the way either of us would have liked it to. And it felt like the dude who won the championship had kind of given up on the race, which stung even more. By the time Seth and I picked our bikes up and got going again, Tom came underneath us from ten seconds down. That made it sting even more. But it’s why we race dirt bikes and it’s why we love this sport. You never know what you’re going to get.

Well, the crowd enjoyed it, that’s for sure.
Yeah, my whole year was gnarly, and there were so many times I thought I was out of it. But they kept giving me a chance, and same thing in that main event. The two guys I was going against for the championship started second and third, and how it played out I was able to catch them. It’s 100 percent my fault, but also, I never should have been allowed to get in that position, to be able to go for that pass. I started 14^th or 15^th, whatever it was. My whole main event was wild, and it ended wild.

I am sorry for the outcome of it. To my team, to Mitch, and to Seth. I’m not going to apologize for the attempt itself, and any actual racer can probably agree with me on that side of it. I had to take a break from social media the last few days because man, it’s been getting me fired up! I’m already fired up enough to go race the 450 here in a few weeks. I hope this fires me up and I can go out there and have an awesome summer and kind of put this whole 250 career behind me.