Coming into the seventh round of the 250SX East Championship at Atlanta Motor Speedway, many felt Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing’s Nate Thrasher would finally land himself back on the top step of the podium in his fight against championship leader Hunter Lawrence. Thrasher won the third race of the championship back at Arlington, but he did so by not winning any of the Triple Crown races as he put up consistent 2-2-3 scores to claim the victory. But Atlanta Motor Speedway is not only the home of Thrasher’s maiden triumph back in 2021, but he doubled down and won at the Speedway again seven days later. Two of his four career victories then came at Atlanta and there was reason to believe number five was on the cards.
Things were going according to plan as Thrasher qualified fastest on the day and then rolled on to take the victory in his heat race as well. The main event saw his teammate Haiden Deegan grab the holeshot with Hunter Lawrence in second and Jordon Smith in third before Thrasher pulled up to caboose a front four group that ran away from the rest of the pack. Lawrence slipped quickly by Deegan for the lead and then Smith followed suit a few laps later. Thrasher was riding well in fourth but not quite moving forward quick enough. He ran his best lap of the race on lap five as he inched up on Deegan, but everything came crashing down just moments later.
Halfway through the first set of whoops on the eighth lap, Thrasher got kicked hard on the third whoop from the end of the set and the resulting rebound from the motorcycle sent Thrasher flying over the bars a further 30 feet down the track onto the up face of a ski jump. He landed hard on the left side of his body, his shoulder and hip taking the brunt of the impact. Clearly in a great deal of pain, Thrasher crawled to the side of the track and laid down as the Alpinestars Medical Team arrived. In an instant, his race, his season, and maybe his year, were all over.
Thrasher took to Instagram on Monday to explain the extent of his injuries.
“We had a perfect day going at ATL,” explained Thrasher. “Going P1 in qualifying and then getting the heat race win. Unfortunately, I had a hard crash in the main which caused me to dislocate my hip and break my collarbone. They were able to put my hip back in place but, when I got a CAT scan, they noticed a few bone fragments, so we are still waiting to get surgery on that.”
It’s an unfortunate end to Thrasher’s season as 2023 had been his first real run at being in the mix for a championship in his professional career. Given that Thrasher was the only remaining rider reasonably close to Hunter Lawrence, it also effectively ended the championship as Lawrence pulled to a 45-point advantage with just 78-points still available.
| Position | Rider | Hometown | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Hunter Lawrence | Landsborough, Australia  | 241 |
| 2 |  Haiden Deegan | Temecula, CA  | 183 |
| 3 |  Max Anstie | Newbury, England, United Kingdom  | 182 |
| 4 |  Jordon Smith | Belmont, NC | 159 |
| 5 |  Chris Blose | Phoenix, AZ | 143 |
Racer X's Tom Journet was there to capture Thrasher's crash in Atlanta.
The whoops in Atlanta had been tricky all day long as the softness in the dirt from rain the day prior cupped out the whoops but kept the actual height of them quite similar, making it almost a necessity to blitz them despite the choppiness. Adam Cianciarulo nearly had a similar crash in the exact same spot as Thrasher during his heat race when he was bucked off his Kawasaki from the lead only to slide safely just past the ski jump that Thrasher slammed into.
For the second race in a row, a dislocated hip is the culprit for a season-ending injury after Christian Craig suffered the same fate during practice for the Glendale Supercross 10 days ago. A tough pill to swallow for both Thrasher and Craig and we hope their recoveries go well so we can see them back on the track sooner rather than later.
