Last May, Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing rider Justin Cooper placed second in the final race of the 2026 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship inside Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, Utah.
With the result, the racer out of Cold Springs Harbor, N.Y., finished the Supercross campaign in an excellent fifth-place position. On Saturday, May 30, Cooper opened up the 2026 AMA Pro Motocross Championship with a fourth place finish at Fox Raceway Pala. One week later it all went sideways (literally) for Cooper when he crashed heavily in Moto 2 at the Hangtown Motocross Classic and suffered a severe concussion and battered and bruised body. Lingering symptoms form the brutal concussion and a slow recovery process forced the 29 year-old out of the AMA Pro Motocross Championship.
Still struggling along the way during the healing process, in September word came down that Cooper would back out of the 2026 Monster Energy SuperMotocross World Championship Playoffs and turn his focus on preparing for the 2027 racing season. And that’s where we found him this week.
“Just been struggling since I crashed,” quietly explained Cooper. “I’m hanging in there. I’m just at home in Tallahassee. I’ve been traveling quite a bit and taking some down time. With my health, everything there is getting better. I’ve been working really hard with the recovery and just getting back into shape.”
Cooper has been taking everything slowly and explained what he has been focusing and working on throughout the lengthy healing process.
“Working on a little bit of everything,” he pointed out. “There is some stuff just lingering, some head stuff and some fitness stuff. From shutting down for a couple of months, I’ve just got to obviously get back into it and I’ve been having a good couple months getting back into it all and feeling really strong. But yeah, as far as not racing, it was just nice to have some downtime.
“Thankfully, I’ve had a good run. You know I had the last three years without really missing any racing. Yeah, sometimes motocross can do that. I mean this crash I had was really out of my control. That part of it sucks. Yeah, that’s the risk we put ourselves at.”
As part of his recovery process in trying to get back to racing, Cooper has been training, riding and sorting out the factory Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing YZ450F.
“Yeah, I’ve been doing everything, really. He said, pleased to be back on the motorcycle. “I’m back on supercross now. Obviously no rush. I’ve just been enjoying the process of getting back into everything and that’s where we’re at,” Cooper said. “Of course we’re taking our time with it all. There’s no rush back from what I was dealing with, so just taking the necessary steps to be back at 100-percent. Everything has been going to plan and we’ll continue to go that way and be ready for next season.”
Cooper is now back at it and weighed in on just how he is feeling both on and off the bike while now down in Florida.
“Yeah, just kind of a different feeling when you do it every day,” he offered. “You’re so in-tune with it and it becomes a lot. With that downtime that I had, it’s refreshing to be back on the bike. It’s newfound motivation for doing it. That’s been the most special part to me: wanting to do it again. It starts to feel like a real job.”
With absolutely so much demanded from professional SuperMotocross racers in so many ways, has Cooper ever felt burnt out with racing along the way during his decade-long career?
“Yeah, of course,” said Cooper. “As much racing as we do, we race way too much. It was almost like a blessing in disguise to have had that little bit of downtime. It’s not easy to do these full seasons. It takes a lot out of you physically and mentally. Aa much as I missed being out with the racing, I knew that I needed the break. I feel really refreshed now and motivated to keep working.
“I mean it’s really tough to race 31 rounds and then have, say, two weeks off the bike. It feels like a day,” he added. “The series that we do are way too much on the body, I think. Yeah, they just keep adding more races, so I think at some point we’re going to see riders start fighting back. For now, it’s what we’ve got.”
Before getting injured, Cooper was on a strong and consistent run with his competition results.
“Yeah, it was going amazing,” said Cooper. “I had a really good supercross season. The first outdoor race I did was really good, too. Yeah, it was all going to plan. Supercross was a really good season. Maybe we struggled a little bit in the beginning, but I would say that halfway through it all it really started to come around and I started to feel like myself.
“We got some main event wins in the Triple Crown and that was obviously huge for me. It was great to win. It’s one thing to do it and you have to believe in yourself. It’s all different once you accomplish that for yourself.”
Right now Cooper is looking to 2027 and the launch of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship
“Yeah, of course I’m doing everything that I can to keep things on plan. Obviously we can’t predict the future,” Cooper said. “Stuff can happen, but yeah, everything is going to plan right now. Yeah, just taking it one day at a time and trusting the process. From here, I’ll rely on my trainer and my team. Obviously we do this every year, so it’s just the basic bootcamp and getting that body ready for a full race season. You don’t want to peak too early.
“We’ve got a long year ahead of us, but we’ll do the work and get strong and fit and get that good feeling and head into the opener and give it hell. The goal is to get better every year. Yeah, as long as we keep doing the work that we’ve been doing, there is no reason why we shouldn’t be there. I’m going to head into 2027 with my hopes and believing in myself and see where that takes us.”
