Straight out of Bayside, New York, a neighborhood situated in the New York City borough of Queens, Nick Romano is a 21-year-old racer desperately trying to stay healthy and off the injured reserve list. Highly touted going back to his rookie year in the sport of 2022, Romano, unlike some riders of his graduation class, has struggled mightily from injuries and bad luck.

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A member of the Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing organization from 2019 through 2024, injuries put an end to his run there, Romano joining Phoenix Racing Honda for the 2025 racing season before he damaged his knee at the 250SX East Division curtain raising round at Tampa.

Undaunted, Romano has refused to give up and recent rumors floating around Southern California claim the young man out of the Empire State has found a ride for the remainder of the year. Keen to find out more about Nick Romano’s immediate future in the sport, we tracked him down over the weekend.

Before we got rolling on everything, we wanted to find out just how a kid out of Bayside, Queens, New York found his way into the sport of motocross. Take it away Nick Romano.

“Dude, I’ve gotten that question asked a lot. To be fair, my dad rode for fun with a couple of his buddies here and there. He was a weekend warrior. He decided to get me a bike when I was three. Since then, I never looked back, honestly. I got a bike and I was good at it and that was that, you know? So yeah, technically I’m from New York City. I’m from Queens. It’s not Times Square. I’m not in the heart of it, but our address is considered New York City. I’m right on the New York City and Long Island border. With no traffic, it’s 25 minutes into Times Square and all that stuff. It’s pretty sick, honestly. Whenever I have friends that visit and I kind of show them around, they’re like, ‘Dude, what the heck?’ But it’s cool.”

So just what has Nick Romano been up to thus far in 2026?

“So we’re back on the mend, I guess you could say,” explained Romano. “We’re back training, I’ve got this awesome opportunity to go racing for Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki and for Mitch and his guys. It’s a dream come true.”

Certainly a surprise announcement, he explained just how the opportunity came about.

“There was nothing really in the works, you know?” started Romano. “I had a rough couple years. Throughout my amateur days, I was on Kawasaki Team Green and teammates with Ryder DiFrancesco and Jett Reynolds and Stilez Robertson and that kind of whole era. I kind of branched off from Kawasaki Team Green back in the day and ended up at Star Racing Yamaha for a couple years. I got hurt and hurt and hurt and then went the privateer route last year and, again, got injured. So it was just a rough couple years.

“You know me and Mitch Payton have always had a relationship from the Kawasaki days back then,” continues Romano. “I’ve always kept in touch and then fast forward to about October of last year. I didn’t even have a dirt bike. I was without a dirt bike for the first time in my life. I just didn’t know what I wanted to do. I’ve been tired of getting hurt. I was just in a weird headspace, you know? It was just tough. As any athlete or dirt bike racer knows, it’s highs and lows. What I’ve kind of learned from that is you can’t let the highs get too high and you can’t let the lows get too low. When you’re stuck in that dark hole, I guess you could say, you’re really lost. You don’t really know who you are as a person. You’re battling injuries and you have the fans and you see this and that on social media and it’s just tough. Yeah, it is what it is and I don’t want to dwell on it too much and talk about it because we’re out of that stage. It was brutal, but going back to the Kawasaki thing…I got back to Florida, and again, and I’m seeing Levi Kitchen and I’m seeing Pierce Brown and I’m seeing Nate Thrasher and I’m seeing all my close friends and we’re starting the off-season, right? We’re getting back after it and I’m just sitting there without a bike. It was pretty hard. It was a tough week. I want to give a shout out to [trainer] Real Deal Rob and Jason and Stacy Baker at Moto Sandbox because that’s where I trained back in Florida. I think without them, I probably wouldn’t have kept going. They pushed me to go get a bike. That led me to come out to California and do my boot camp because I was severely out of shape. That led me to come out to California. I still didn’t really have any plans. I just was out of shape from the year off. My trainer was out here in California, and I got in touch with him and was like, ‘Hey man, I want to come out to California and I want to do a month-long boot camp. I want to put my head down. I want you to write me an insane program and let’s just get after it.’ That’s one thing, too. When I’m sitting around not training and not riding, you kind of lose your mind, right? I needed to come back to Socal and really get back in the environment.

“So I came out here and one conversation after another, and everyone was like, ‘Hey man, go talk to Mitch Payton while you’re out here. You’re only 30 minutes away. Go pop in and say what’s up?’ That led me to go have a couple meetings with Mitch. Like I said, me and Mitch have always been cool and always will be. As everyone knows, Mitch Payton is a legend, right? What he’s built, and the team he has, and the championships he has… Honestly, I still get nervous talking to him. Fast forward about a month out here and a couple conversations led to, ‘Well, man, I like you. We can’t do anything with you, but I want you to go back home and start training.’ I had come off a year of just being off the bike. I mentioned that to Mitch and he said, ‘Dude, no. I have bikes for you.’ He sold me a showroom floor bike for a really good deal and Mitch absolutely hooked it up. He put a pipe on it, he put clamps on it, he put a Hinson clutch in it, he put a high compression piston in it. He made it a safe bike for me to go and train on. I appreciate that from Mitch. Yeah man, I got to Florida sometime in November. In the meantime, I started riding Levi Kitchen’s 450. So I went home and I rode Levi’s 450 for about two and a half weeks. And then my bike showed up and I put my head down. I got on supercross around the second week of December. From there, man, I kind of got the mojo back going. I was enjoying riding. I was doing things the way I wanted to do them for the fist time in my career. That’s one thing with me. I don’t slack any of the hard work or any of that stuff. It was an enjoyable couple months through December and through January. Yeah man, I just did the things how I wanted to do them. I really took my time getting my laps back. I wasn’t rushed. I still had no plans of racing. Obviously along those couple months I was reaching out to a bunch of teams, as anyone would. I just kept getting told no, no, no, no. Looking back on that, it really fired me up in a way of like, ‘Okay, I still got it. I know my group of people know I still have it. I’m going to do this for me and me only.’

“Around Anaheim 1 and the second week of January, I still had no calls. I kept my head down and kept training. It was tough. It was a tough couple months because I didn’t know what I was doing and I was doing 70-percent to 80-percent of my own bike work. It was tough and it was long. You also had to fit in your gym and your training and your runs and your road bike rides. It was a taxing couple months, but I had one goal in mind and that was to get myself back on a factory a level team. I didn’t know how I was going to get that opportunity again, but I just put my mind to it and I didn’t look away from it."

Romano had chances to get back to the races with other teams, but he didn't want to jump on just any squad.

“I did have a couple calls to go race West Coast on some satellite teams and stuff like that, but I know my capabilities and I didn’t want to be on a privateer team again. I think a lot of people thought I was crazy, honestly! People close to me and my family and everyone, they were like, ‘Dude, do you know how hard it is to get back on an A level team. You’re not racing. You’re only as good as your last race.’ My last race was in 2024, realistically. I had my mind and my eyes set on this one prize and I wasn’t going to stop until I got it.”

And then Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki team racer Drew Adams went down at the Daytona Supercross and went out with a damaged thumb. Enter Romano.

“Unforuntaely Drew Adams went down at Daytona, and I had still been talking to Mitch. My agent Jimmy Button was reaching out. One thing led to another and it was a long four or five months, but I did the work. I had my eyes set on something. Unfortunately Drew went down and I reached out to Mitch the Monday after Daytona. He answered me and he kind of told me what the situation was. He was like, ‘Look man, we may need you.’ I said, ‘Dude, I’m here.’ He knew I was putting in the work.

“I got the call Thursday, the week after Daytona, and ever since then it was set. I packed my bags and I flew out to So. Cal on Saturday. It’s been about eight days since then and dude, dream come true, honestly.”

So now Nick is back to work and bashing out the testing and training laps in Southern California.

“It feels great,” smiled Roman. “I can say so many things about being back on an A-level team. Dude, when I was a kid I literally dreamed of racing for Mitch Payton and Kawasaki. To get the opportunity to be back on an A level team is awesome, but to be with Mitch makes it one of the best weeks of my life. Monday was my first day on the bike. It was my 21st birthday. Dude, it was like a short documentary. It went incredibly well. Mitch and his team and everyone there is just so on point. It was just better and better and better. By the end of day one and after five or six hours in testing, I felt like I had been on the bike for a couple of years. Everything just went so well. I rode four days this week. Tuesday went well when I broke in my race bike. I’m confident. I know what the bike is going to do. As everyone knows, Mitch doesn’t play games and he’s here to win. I’m here to win. The goal doesn’t change. Like I said, just to have the opportunity to be back on a factory team and for it to be Mitch Payton, it’s truly a dream come true. I’m excited for the future. This week we’ve got a couple more days of riding and then off to the races we go again. I’m looking forward to it.”

Nick Romano is back at the races and back on factory equipment. Could this be a career rescued? His next best chance is next, and he's doing everything he can to be ready for it.