“Time to go back home!” said nine-times world champ Tony Cairoli after he hurt his knee riding in the weekend’s AMA round at High Point. “Super experience even if it was difficult without a proper preparation. I enjoyed the opening rounds of the @promotocross a lot. Thanks to my American fans and KTM USAKTM Factory Racing for making it possible and for giving me the best support.”

Cairoli initially said he’d do just two rounds but then extended it to four. He was getting close to a podium but had a double DNF on Saturday.

Cairoli, the fifth-place qualifier, was ready for a podium push at the start of the day. The Italian rider grabbed a seventh-place start in Moto 1 and started to climb forward but he came together with another rider early in the race and tweaked his knee, causing him to pull off and rest for the remainder of the race. Despite all efforts to attempt racing in Moto 2, the nine-time world champion wasn’t able to finish the day.

Antonio Cairoli:“I look forward to this race because the track I really like. In practice this morning, I felt better than the previous race, of course the pace was much better and we worked a little bit on speed this week, so the feeling was good. First moto, the start was okay with sixth on the first lap and I knew I needed to attack to win some positions but I made a mistake and touched together with another rider and I put down my knee really hard. I felt it immediately because this knee is giving me some trouble already and it was a big hit. It started swelling up and fluid inside, so I pulled off.

“Second moto, I was last off the start because it’s a different format than in GPs and I was a little surprised at the silly mistake I did and I had to line up on the outside, which is not the ideal place to start. With the knee in this condition, I couldn’t really pull a good start and then I was out of the top-20. I got back up to 13th but I was struggling a lot with my knee, so I decided it’s not really a good day, let’s move on. We had a good time here. For sure I would like to end up in a different situation but it’s okay. We are not hurt so bad, just a bad day.”