Image: Octopi Media.

Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Chase Sexton says recent knee surgery has provided ‘a time to reset’ after what proved to be a challenging 2026 campaign, focused on his complete recovery over the coming months.

The 26-year-old’s first season with the factory Kawasaki team has been up and down, with much of the year characterized by wholesale changes to his KX450SR as he worked to adapt to the bike.

A spectacular crash at Thunder Valley’s third round of Pro Motocross resulted in a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), bringing an early end to his season and providing what he described as a much-needed reset.

“As you all saw, I went into an endo, and to be honest I don’t really know what happened – you’d have to ask my team,” Sexton said on Spring Creek’s Race Day Live coverage. “But I just hit the rear brake and went to get back on the gas, but there was nothing there. I obviously went down hard and it scared the living crap out of me.

“[The crash] was not ideal, but to be honest with how this year is going, it’s kind of given me enough time to get a reset in, and the version of what you saw of me out there this year was definitely not the same guy as normal, so it’s given me a time to reset.”

Sexton revealed that October is the targeted timeframe for his return to riding, ruling him out of the Monster Energy SMX World Championship post-season as he instead shifts his focus to preparing for next year.

“It’s going to be hard to come back any sooner than 2027,” he continued. “My goal is to be back on the bike by October, so yeah, that’s obviously past SMX, but as you saw, I didn’t have a great year – I’m not sure who that was riding my bike.

“It wasn’t a great year, so I think I’m going to take it a different route this year and get some race prep in prior to racing. Obviously, I was on a new bike and stuff like that, so there was a lot of stuff going into this year, and it didn’t work out.

“The reset has been needed because me and the team… we were going this way when we should have been going that way, so I’m looking forward to rebounding and having a comeback story next year.”

It’s no secret that Sexton and Kawasaki’s relationship has appeared strained at times, with speculation continuing about whether he will remain with the factory program next year, despite two years remaining on his contract.

The pairing did enjoy moments of success in Monster Energy Supercross 2026, claiming victories at Anaheim 2 and the Salt Lake City finale, as well as a second-place finish in Detroit.