Prior to the start of the 2026 AMA Pro Motocross Championship, Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing’s Max Anstie was just happy to be making a break from the recently completed supercross season.

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“I’m glad we made it through supercross,” said Anstie, who placed third overall in this year's 250SX West Supercross Championship, prior to the opening round of the AMA Pro Motocross Championship at Fox Raceway at Pala in Southern California. “Now we’re full steam ahead for outdoors. So looking forward to that.”

Anstie did not make it through the day at Fox Raceway as a harsh shunt in the 250MX Q2 session sent the 33-year-old Englishman back to the pits and to the emergency ward with severe swelling and discomfort in his glutes. Immediately ruled out of racing at Pala, Anstie and his team also ruled out racing round number two, the Hangtown Motocross Classic in Rancho Cordova. He's now healing up and looking to soon get back on his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing YZ250F.

“I could have raced at Hangtown, but obviously I wouldn’t have been 100 percent," he admits. "It’s early in the season. I want to get back to feeling good and then come back for Colorado.

"At Pala in Q2 I ended up checking out this line. It looked good and everything looked fine. I hit this jump and I landed exactly where I wanted to land and it looked fine until I landed. I think what happened was that there was a kicker underneath a bit of slop. There was mud and slop on top that was kind of hiding this kicker. I landed just thinking it was going to be soft and I would just power through it and wheel tap off the top of this thing. I could not see a kicker. I couldn’t see anything in there until I landed and then I just hit the thing and then ejected.

“I got a hematoma literally on my butt cheek,” continued Anstie. “I mean in all fairness, I got lucky. If I would have landed on my hip or my shoulder, I think it would have been bad. My butt muscle, my gluteus, basically took the full force of it. So nothing is broken. I’m fine. I literally couldn’t sit down for a few days and it’s all black and blue. I was hammering it with physiotherapy and trying to get back to Hangtown. Obviously that didn’t happen. I would have been able to race, I think. There is a difference between being able to be competitive and then just being out there. I don’t want go out there and just make up the numbers. I want to be competitive, especially since it’s only round two. You want to be strong.

“I’ve been cycling for a couple hours today. I’m feeling OK. I’m studying and watching the race and trying to learn what I can so I’m going to be ready to rock and roll by this time next week.

"Tuesday I’ll be back on the bike. It’s still a dream to be going into this outdoor season with the team and the bike that we have. You’ve got to deal with disappointments in this sport. We get good at that. We have to learn to refocus and reframe and say, 'OK, what can I do now? What’s in my control? What’s important? What can I do?' OK, the championship is out the window, but let’s go and have some solid rides for the rest of the year. I’m not done yet on outdoors. I want to continue to do it, so let’s see how the rest of it all pans out.”

His return next Saturday will be at Thunder Valley Motocross Park in Lakewood, Colo. And that's fine with him.

“Yeah, Colorado is cool,” he pointed out. “I like it, At the end of the day we’ve got altitude. It has been a while since I’ve raced there, but yeah, I’m looking forward to it. All of these tracks are awesome in America. I love the supercross, but I also love the outdoors, too. I was watching Hangtown today on TV and saying to myself, ‘Man, how bad is it? Am I allright? Could I race today?’ It was one of those deals where you look at it and you say, ‘Oh, I want to be out there.’

"I’m looking forward to getting back into it at Colorado. Then we go back east. We go to High Point and then it’s RedBud and those sorts of tracks which are awesome, awesome places on the calendar. From the Great Outdoors back in the day, watching Ricky Carmichael and James Stewart and Ryan Villopoto, it’s all iconic to me. As someone who grew up watching all those guys racing at all those places, it’s just cool to be a part of it.

"A lot goes into this. A lot of the puzzle pieces have to fall together in the right way and you also have to have a bit of luck. At the end of the day, you can’t focus on winning when you’re out there. You just have to focus on executing and doing your job. And if that’s enough to get the job done and win, then fantastic. If not, then you go back to the drawing board during the week and work at being better for the weekend after.

"It’s just one step at a time. I get back on the bike next week and let’s go racing in Colorado and get a base. Let’s just have two decent rides. Let’s get the ball rolling and get some information and sone data on the bike and get some feel going and see were we are at and see what we need to work on and improve on and then we’ll hit it hard again at High Point and just continue to step up.”