Planning to make the jump to the 450 class next year, Austin Forkner has outlined the importance of his upcoming 250SX East campaign as he looks to iron out crucial areas this season.

Forkner, 23, showed clear potential in last year’s Supercross only to be forced out again with an injury sustained at Houston 3, recovering for a difficult 250MX campaign where he finished seventh overall.

The Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki rider approaches the 250SX East series with an added sense of maturity, drawing positives from the difficult moments in the previous years to help level his charge ahead of Minneapolis’ season-opener on Saturday, and better prepare him for a likely jump to the premier class in 2023.

“I believe I was supposed to move up sooner, but because of injuries and stuff, just how it has happened I’m still in the 250 class,” Forkner stated. “That’s fine, if I still need to mature a little bit and still need to work on some things, I would rather do that in the 250 class and be better once I get to the 450 class.

“It’s kind of one of those things where I feel like it’s the best thing to do, if I’m still not quite… have everything figured out and not doing everything right on a 250, then it’s going to be even harder on a 450. That’s just kind of the way that I look at it, I’ll move up whenever I’m ready.

“I think that maturity level coming into this year, how certain things have happened and how I have handled certain things, even going through last year having that terrible outdoors season, I feel like has definitely helped with some things, so I feel like staying down for this year is going to do nothing but hopefully help that also.

“I feel like I will be ready next year if everything lines up, if that’s what ends up happening is going to 450 next year, but as of right now that is the plan and I think it will work out.”