MILLVILLE \u2014 In mid-May, Henry Miller had as much momentum as he\u2019s ever had in his 10-year professional motorcycle racing career.<\/p>\n
The Rochester native was coming off the best finish of his career in the AMA Supercross points standings, after placing seventh in the 250SX East series.<\/p>\n
He was comfortable with his team, his bike and his health as the AMA Pro Motocross season neared.<\/p>\n
Then, on May 15, Miller was riding in a practice session at Glen Helen Raceway in San Bernardino, Calif., when he crashed and landed face-first.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, I had a little \u2014 I had a big mishap, two weeks before the first round\u201d of the motocross championship, which was held May 30 in Pala, Calif., approximately 50 miles north of San Diego. \u201cThey loaded me into the ambulance, all that good stuff, and straight to the trauma center.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller\u2019s biggest concern initially was his mouth and face, after crashing to the ground and having his lower lip ripped from his gums. In a photo posted on social media by his team, MX6 Racing, in mid-June, Miller also had a slightly swollen left eye.<\/p>\n
Fortunately for Miller, the bumps and bruises were the extent of the damage to his face and head. He didn\u2019t suffer a concussion \u2014 \u201cI had a good helmet,\u201d he said. \u201cIt did its job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just more than two months later, Miller made his return to the track on Saturday at a race that he has missed just twice in the last 11 years, the Pro Nationals at Spring Creek MX Park in Millville. It\u2019s a track that Miller grew up racing on, and a track where he has had some of his best rides as a pro.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything in my life \u2014 period \u2014 has been hectic for the last month,\u201d said Miller, who moved from Texas to southern Georgia last week while also trying to get seat time in on his Kawasaki KX250 bike. \u201cIt\u2019s just wide open, so it\u2019s nice to be able to come back here, see some friends and family who come to the race, because I really don\u2019t have that much time right now (to visit Minnesota).<\/p>\n
\u201cI was trying to squeeze in as much time on the bike as I could before coming here and \u2014 we\u2019re racing now, so it\u2019s in and out (of Minnesota). We have to get right back to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller \u2014 who said he had \u201csix or seven productive days of riding\u201d prior to racing at Spring Creek \u2014 finished 23rd overall (17th in Moto 1, 26th in Moto 2) in the 40-rider 250 Class field on Saturday. He will head to Washougal, Wash., next week \u2014 with his body still not at 100% from the crash in California two months ago. He said he\u2019s pain-free, but some nerve damage in his right shoulder and arm is taking longer to recover from.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s maybe working at about 50%,\u201d he said of his right shoulder and arm. \u201cThe arm and shoulder (trouble) kind of came up after the face calmed down. We were like \u2018oh, wait, now there\u2019s something else.\u2019 It wasn\u2019t a worry at the time. We thought it was just a stinger, then that stinger didn\u2019t go away.<\/p>\n
\u201cThankfully, there\u2019s no pain. But those nerves control the muscles, and the muscles aren\u2019t all activating. The arm does get tired a lot quicker because those muscles aren\u2019t firing. It\u2019s different.\u201d<\/p>\n
As he did a year ago, Miller started this motocross season in Millville and he\u2019ll ride the remainder of the championship series this summer, which includes four more rounds and concludes on Aug. 29 at Ironman Raceway in Crawfordsville, Ind.<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll ride those rounds with the support of MX6 Racing, the team based out of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., that signed him a year ago just before the races at Spring Creek. Miller rode for them the rest of the 2025 motocross season, and that partnership carried over into 2026 and the supercross and motocross seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this is a good one to come back to, because there’s a lot of friends and family that kind of take my mind off the racing too,\u201d Miller said of making his return at his home track, \u201cso I can just go ride my dirt bike, not worry about other things that are going on and just enjoy it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s just been nice to be able to do something other than running and riding a bicycle.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILLVILLE \u2014 In mid-May, Henry Miller had as much momentum as he\u2019s ever had in his 10-year professional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,71958,806,805,803,804,383998,383999,85],"class_list":["post-809091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motocross","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-pb-social-media","tag-plainview-elgin-millville","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}