Justin Barcia will sit out at least three rounds to allow his knees to heal and hopes to return to action for his home-state race in Unadilla, New York. Barcia does not expect to undergo any surgeries.
The injury was suffered at the end of the 2024 Monster Energy Supercross season and has plagued him throughout the first five Rounds of Pro Motocross.
Despite riding with the injury, Barcia earned top-five finishes at Fox Raceway in Pala, California, and at Thunder Valley in Lakewood, Colorado.
“Unfortunately, I’ve been dealing with some knee injuries since about the week before Salt Lake City, and I’ve been pushing through it,” Barcia said in a release. “One knee has a torn/sprained MCL, and my other knee had bursitis, with a little bit of a tear in the meniscus – not too bad, nothing that requires surgery. Because of the swelling, two of my tendons finally let go at High Point, but the good thing is that technically they will just scar up and be fine.
“I haven’t been riding during the week at all, just been trying to race on the weekends for my fans and the crew, but it’s got to the point now that we have a really good bike, my riding is really good, and these knees are holding us back. We want to be better than fifth-to-eighth, so we are going to take some time off. I will still be able to train quite a bit, do PT on the knees, and see what we can do to get better. All in all, they just need some time to heal up, so the goal right now, I would say, is to come back for Unadilla. I won’t miss too many races if everything works out, which I believe it will, and then we’ll come back swinging!”
After further injuring his knee in the High Point Nationals, Barcia and the team decided the best course of action would be to allow it to heal naturally.
Barcia was sixth in Moto 1 last week and 11th in Moto 2 for a seventh-place overall finish. After the Southwick Nationals, he was eighth in the Pro Motocross standings and sixth in SuperMotocross with a 282-point gap over 21st. The top 20 in combined Supercross and Motocross points earn an automatic invitation to the three-round SuperMotocross World Championship features.
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