Unadilla marked the first gate-drop for Justin Barcia since late April and the Troy Lee Designs Red Bull GasGas racer said ‘we know we’ve got a lot of work to do’ as he looks to build form into the post-season.

Barcia was initially injured at round 15 of Monster Energy Supercross in Nashville, with complications delaying his return until the final stint of the outdoors.

The number 51 made a solid start at round nine by qualifying fourth fastest, before a crash in the first turn of moto one damaged his clutch lever and the team opted to remove it. After another incident later in the moto, he returned to the pits and exited altogether.

After starting just inside the top 20 in moto two, despite another tangle on lap one, Barcia methodically picked his way to 14th to ultimately finish 19th overall on the day.

“The day started off really well,” Barcia explained. “I was really having a good time and was going into the first moto with a lot of good vibes and good feels.

“Unfortunately, I got in a first-turn pile-up and damaged my bike pretty bad. I tried to do a few laps, but I ended up crashing again and had to pull her in and go back to the semi, so that was a shame for the first moto – not really the race I wanted coming back.

“In the second moto, I had the far outside gate pick. I got off to a good jump, but pretty much had nowhere to go in the tight Unadilla first corner, so I was pretty buried. I was charging through the third corner and got in another little pile-up and ended up going down. It was an extremely tough moto… That was my first 30-minute moto in a long time.

“So it was a tough day, but all-in-all, it was very nice to be back at the races. We know we’ve got a lot of work to do and knew that this would be a good test for the future SuperMotocross stuff – we’ll keep working and be back next week at Budds Creek.”

With two rounds left in the 2023 Pro Motocross Championship, Barcia is 10th place in the 450SMX standings as the SuperMotocross World Championship playoffs draw closer.