Salt Lake City, UT Salt Lake CityMonster Energy AMA Supercross Championship
In Friday’s pre-race press conference ahead of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross season finale, Cooper Webb confirmed he has been dealing with a left thumb injury the latter half of the season. He stated the injury has impacted his mental state lining up each weekend, but that “pain is temporary” and it did not significantly impact his results. Despite the injury, he kept fighting hard each and every weekend and even closed up the 450SX championship gap Jett Lawrence had to make the title fight come down to the wire at the 17th round. Webb confirmed he would in fact need surgery to fix torn ligament damage but did not comment on his status for the AMA Pro Motocross Championship, which starts next Saturday (May 25) in California.
“Yeah, so it’s…I’m not sure, exactly the timeline, but yeah, unfortunately it will require surgery,” Webb stated on the injury ahead of the finale. “So, we’ll let you know more soon.”
Friday’s news of Webb needing surgery came just one day after Yamaha announced Eli Tomac would be out for six to eight weeks due to a Bennet’s Fracture of his own from a crash at the Denver SX.
At the season finale, Webb gutted out a third-place finish in the main event, although he came up short in a little-too-late last-ditch effort to try and steal the title away from Lawrence. The #18 finished seventh and took the 2024 450SX #1 plate, but you have to give Webb credit for his no-quit effort.
In a video posted to X (formerly Twitter) late Sunday night, Webb confirmed he will have surgery today (Monday). He said in the video he anticipates at least an eight-week recovery period but hopes to race as many Pro Motocross events this summer as possible before the SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX) playoffs in September.
Webb said the following in Sunday night’s post-race Yamaha press release:
“It was awesome to end the season on the podium despite the adversity we’ve been dealt these past few weeks. I had to dig deep for that one tonight and I’m pumped to share the podium with my teammate for his first 450SX podium.
“It’s disappointing to be missing the beginning of Pro Motocross, but fixing this thumb injury is a must to be at my best for the remainder of the year. The goal is to come back for the final stretch of the outdoor season and come into the SMX playoffs swinging.”
Team manager for the 450 team Jeremy Coker said the following:
“What a way to finish the season. Cooper showed heart the whole time, and for Justin to finish on the podium – it was an awesome race. We’ll go back to the Farm and get back to work on getting ready for outdoors. And for Coop and Eli, they’ll start their process of getting back to 100% with surgery tomorrow. We look forward to having them back with us later this season.”
With neither Tomac nor Webb at the first few rounds of Pro Motocross, at the moment it seems rookie Justin Cooper will be the team’s sole 450 rider come the Fox Raceway National opener. Cooper had a solid, rather underrated full rookie 450SX season, which ended with a career-best P2 to earn his first career podium.
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