Nick Romano was set for his Monster Energy AMA Supercross debut this season, but an undisclosed injury in early January kept the #54 out of the first 250SX East Region race last weekend in Houston, Texas. Romano and the Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing team decided to have the New York native sit out the first round in order to recovery fully before making his 2023 season debut in the upcoming weeks. But last night, Romano took to Instagram to explain details of a new injury.
“Hey guys, so I don’t have the best of news to be telling ya’ll,” Romano started with in the video post. “I’m gonna be out for the whole year. As much as that sucks to say, I am going to missing all of supercross and probably all of outdoors. I don’t really have words. I ended up blowing out my knee—ACL and meniscus—last week during training. Like I said, I don’t really have many words.”
“Off-season was going great,” he continued, “was really making a lot of progress with the team and my bike and just everything on supercross. I felt amazing, fitness felt good, riding was good.”
Then he explained the injury he suffered in January—which was a shoulder separation—that kept him out for Houston.
“January 3 I had a grade three separation in my shoulder so that’s what technically put me out for Houston last weekend,” he said. “So January 3, I got hurt, then a couple of doctors said four-to-six weeks, which I saw like, ‘Damn, I’m going to miss a little bit of racing.’ I didn’t need surgery and just did physical therapy basically every day, got my shoulder really good and ready to ride in three weeks exactly. So 21 days later, I was on a bike. Felt good, felt strong. Didn’t lose that much speed or fitness. And then yeah, that was a couple of weeks ago.”
“And then had about four or five days on the bike, and, yeah, just during training, I blew up my knee,” he continued.” I didn’t crash, I didn’t fall, I didn’t dab it. It happened off of a turn into a jump. I stood up on the jump and put my leg on the footpeg and it [my knee] kind of buckled. And then I hooked my foot, it was my right leg, so I hooked my foot under the pedal so I could hit the jump and felt it pop again. And as it popped the second time, I just felt my knee kind of expand, and I guess that’s when you could say it tore. Kind of hard to explain.”
“I didn’t know right away. My day was done. I went back and went home and iced it. Next day it was pretty swollen so I went and got an MRI. That’s what did it. That’s what’s going to put me out for the season.”
“I don’t really know what else to say. I’m beyond bummed. I was working super hard. Sucks. I’ve been asking myself why…why for a couple days now. And I just can’t seem to find the answer. But God has a plan for every one of us and I just gotta trust the process and keep chugging along. As much as it sucks…it’s going to be a long process to get me back to 100 percent. I’ll come back stronger—I know I will. I always do.”
He said surgery will either happen later this week or early next week.
Romano becomes the fourth factory 250SX East Region rider out, joining Kawasaki’s Seth Hammaker (broken arm) and Jo Shimoda (broken collarbone) and Husqvarna’s Jalek Swoll (broken arm) who are all sidelined for the immediate future.
In a 250SX East Region field with a handful of rookies making their respective pro supercross debuts, the 17-year-old (who turns 18 in March) was expected to be right there in the mix turning heads as well. It is crazy to think how far Romano has come in just a few short years. Coming right off a supermini at the 2019 AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch, Romano signed with Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing and went straight to a 250F. He made his pro debut with the team during last summer’s AMA Pro Motocross Championship, finishing 16th in the 250 Class after competing in eight rounds.
Watch Romano’s full video below.
