Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing’s Justin Cooper is certain that he is currently riding as good as ever, after he narrowly missed out on the 250MX overall on countback at Budds Creek with a 1-2 scorecard.

Cooper won moto two last time out at Unadilla and backed that up by qualifying fasted for the fifth time this season at round 10, before working his way to the front in the restarted opening race.

In moto two, Cooper was third after the start and made his way past Austin Forkner (Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki) on lap eight to slide into P2, closing down to within 1.578s of title rival Hunter Lawrence (Team Honda HRC) come race-end.

“The day went really smooth for me,” said Cooper. “Got off to two pretty decent starts, and made my way forward from there. It was a battle all day, and I feel like I’m riding at the best of my career. So yeah, we will take it into the last race and give it one more go.”

Despite not scoring at High Point after a crash in qualifying forced him to the sidelines, Cooper enters the final round of the Pro Motocross Championship next weekend at Budds Creek with an outside shot at claiming the 250MX title, 22 points down on leader Lawrence.

In the opening moto in Maryland, Cooper did make contact – albeit nothing major – with the number 96 while making a move for second and spoke of the move post-race following the 10th round.

“Hunter is no joke, he is really good at racing,” Cooper added. “He’s got really good racecraft, really good rider and, yeah, just had to bump him a little bit. It was the first lap, everyone was kind of finding their flow a little bit and I saw an opportunity to get underneath him, so yeah a little contact, but nothing crazy.

“From there, was kind of sandwiched in between Jalek [Swoll] and him, really had to play defensive and then attack at the same time. First moto was definitely tough, it was more of a managing race, and I feel like the pace was a lot more in the second moto.”