Our good friend and all-time AMA media legend, Eric Johnson wrote this nice peice on Nate Thrasher and we wanted to share it with you.

Five rounds into the 2025 250SX East Division championship chase, Nate Thrasher of the Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing organization is tied for fourth in points with injured teammate Max Anstie and remains 21 points out of the championship lead with five rounds yet to be run.

A racer who has experienced wild ups-and-downs throughout his career, it all recently came right when he strung together 3-3-2 race scores for the overall victory in Birmingham, Alabama.

Coming off an off-season where he was “building, building, building” and working on structure, as well as on-bike technique, Thrasher has hovered around the top 10 during the first five rounds of the 2025 campaign.

“Yes, no doubt I have been building,” he said. “I got hurt the week after the first race at Tampa, and ever since then it was just kind of grinding with that injury. Eventually, I was able to get back on the bike and ride it a little bit during the week and was able to get back to feeling like my old self and, yeah, I felt really good over the weekend in Birmingham.

“I want to go at the rest of this season with the same mindset I did with the last race. I’m healthy now and just trying to go out there and do the best we can, but I think we’re going to be in a good spot come the next round. Normally once I get going and once I get the confidence, it is easier to keep doing it. I think these next rounds are going to be really good and hopefully we can battle for this championship.”

A six-time main event winner this far in his 250cc career, Thrasher is confident in his speed and determination and determined to charge towards additional race victories.

“Knowing you can win is obviously a good thing to have back there when you need to lean on it,” he said. “You know, like, ‘I’ve been here before and I’ve done this before.’ That’s definitely good for the mental stuff.”

Thrasher has come up against stiff competition in 2025 in the likes of Tom Vialle, RJ Hampshire and Seth Hammaker, and is encouraged by his results throughout the championship march.

“Yeah, no doubt the competition is tough,” said Thrasher. “I mean, there is a lot of race winners. Coming into this year in the East Division there is the most race winners ever. So yeah, it is super-stacked. I think it’s going to be a fight every weekend, so there are a lot of fast guys and it’s not going to get any easier, but I think I will be good.

“It is definitely not over yet,” he said of the championship struggle. “There is still a lot of racing to be done and anything can happen. Just look at my teammate Max Anstie this weekend. He ended up going down and it happened that fast. I’ve been on the other side of it, so I know just to stay the course. If we can click off some wins here, I think we’ll be right back in it.

“I think the rest of these East Region races will suit me well. I’m excited to get up there. I think the dirt is going to suit me quite good. The tracks get a little bit ruttier. I’m just excited to go to Boston and Foxborough. I’ve never been there before. I’m also looking forward to Salt Lake. I’ve won Salt Lake before, so that obviously gives me a bunch of confidence going into that round. I think that if we can get there with a chance, we’ll be in a good spot. I have a lot of confidence there. And I’ve never been to Philadelphia and never been to Pittsburgh, so a couple new stadiums that they are going to for the first time, so I think it’s going to be cool.”

Thrasher’s approach for the second half of the 250SX East Division is to simply sharply focus on the potential to win more main events.

“Tight now I think the main focus is to just try and win races,” he said. “That’s pretty much where we are at right now. The main goal is, championship or bust. I’d be happy with a couple race wins. We’ll see. As of now I am just focused on it race-by-race. As far as the title, I think we are still in it. There is a lot of racing left. We have two more Shootout races and anything can happen. If you get fifth place in an East and West shootout, that’s pretty good. And if I win, that’s a 10-point swing right there.”