Silly season is in full swing following the SMX finale at the LA Coliseum. Team Honda HRC has wasted little time in announcing that Jo Shimoda will race a CRF250R during the 2024 and ’25 seasons. The Japanese native will race alongside teammates Jett Lawrence, Hunter Lawrence and Chance Hymas.
“I’m super-stoked to join Honda’s factory team,” Shimoda said. “I feel like I’ve progressed a lot since I was with Factory Connection, and I hope that I can take the next step in my career, to win an AMA Championship.”
After earning early success as an amateur racer, he signed with the Honda-supported Factory Connection team’s amateur program in 2017, then turned pro near the end of the 2019 season. In 2020 (Shimoda’s first full year as a professional), he earned the AMA Supercross Rookie of the Year Award after finishing 3rd in the AMA 250SX East Region final standings.
“It feels like a reunion… Rider-signing news is always exciting, but this one is particularly meaningful for our management and many of our associates, given the Japanese connection," notes Brandon Wilson, Manager of Racing and Experiential Marketing at American Honda. "That said, although he’s already the most successful Japanese motocrosser to race fulltime in the U.S., Jo has his sights set on bigger goals, and we look forward to helping him achieve them.”