ASK THE MXPERTS: WILL KTM KEEP JUSTIN HILL?

SUBSCRIBEINTERNAL

Click on images to enlarge

Hillface2015Justin Hill.

Dear MXA,
    I know this isn’t a technical question, but I figure you guys would know the answer. Will KTM keep Justin Hill on the factory squad after the terrible season that he has had in 2015? Or will they fire him?

HillKTM

It is important to note that the 2015 season isn’t over yet (and no official word has been released yet), but expectation were high for Justin Hill following the potential he showed back in 2014 at Pro Circuit. Justin did finish 4th for KTM in the 2015 AMA 250 West Supercross series with 4-6-3-9-8-22-6-2 scores (albeit 70 points behind the winner Cooper Webb). In the 2015 AMA Nationals, he may be 18th in 250 National points this year, but he did go 2-5 at the Glen Helen round before getting hurt and missing 4 races. Since coming back he has not been in the top ten in any motos at Red Bud, Millville, Washougal or Unadilla (where he went 14-14). He has two races left (Uah and Indiana) to show what he can do.

Will he be fired? No. But, he won’t be racing out of the factory KTM rig in 2016. Justin will, most likely, be sent to the Troy Lee Designs KTM team. In the ego driven world of motocross stars this will be considered a demotion, but Troy Lee’s team gets the identical works equipment that Justin got at KTM (and all four of their riders are higher in the 250 National standings than Justin).

It is feasible that even if he was doing well that the KTM Factory team would have sent him to the TLD team anyway, since they are going to have Ryan Dungey, Dean Wilson and Marvin Musquin on 450s next year—and would probably prefer to focus on the big bikes and leave Troy Lee’s team to focus on the 250s.
Photos: KTM

SUBSCRIBEINTERNAL

You might also like

Comments are closed.