JD Beach, the 2015 MotoAmerica Supersport Champion and 2016 MotoAmerica Supersport Championship runner-up, is currently recovering from a broken leg that he suffered last month while riding motocross.

“Me and some friends were on our way down to the AIMExpo [in Orlando, Florida],” Beach told Roadracingworld.com Thursday. “We left a week early so we could go ride for a few days on the drive down, and the second day was when I did it.

“I didn’t crash. I just landed wrong on a jump and slammed my foot into the ground. That slammed my tibia bone up into my knee, and the tibia plateau is what the knee joint rides on. So I broke a chunk of that out.”

After suffering his injury at Durhamtown Off-Road Resport in Union Point, Georgia, Beach flew from Atlanta to Southern California, where he had surgery at the hands of orthopedic surgeon and track day rider/road racing enthusiast Dr. Thomas Bryan.

“That [surgery] happened on my birthday, October 12,” said 25-year-old Beach. “He had to pin it and put a screw in it. So now I’m recovering from the surgery. I couldn’t bend my knee [after the surgery] for four weeks, so I just started physical therapy this week to start getting my knee to work again.”

Beach said his total recovery time is expected to be 12 weeks, leaving him eight more weeks of physical therapy to do before he can start testing for the 2017 MotoAmerica season.

Although he is at the end of his current deal with the Y.E.S./Graves Yamaha Supersport team, Beach said he feels good about the likelihood that he will return with his same team in 2017.