The races, comebacks, records, and rivalries that defined Supercross,
Pro Motocross, and the SMX Playoffs across the last five seasons. Each
story below happened, to real riders, on real Saturday nights.
Race RecapMotocross of Nations · Ernée October 6, 2026
Belgium won the Nations without winning a race. Two of its three riders will be on the American gate in January.
Belgium took the Chamberlain Trophy at Ernée on Sunday on
23 points to Spain's 26 and the Netherlands' 34, and
did it without a single race victory. Its six individual rides were
3-12-7-4-5-4; the twelfth was discarded under best-five-of-six, and
nothing else was outside the top seven. Liam Everts went fourth and
fourth. Lucas and Sacha Coenen — both of whom move to Red Bull KTM in
America for 2027 — were third in the MXGP class and third in MX2.
America finished fifth on 53, one point behind Latvia,
which is to say one position better in any one of five counted rides.
Cooper Webb was the best of them with 6-6 for fourth in the Open class;
Julien Beaumer went 10-17 in the first 450 race of his life and both
rides had to count; Levi Kitchen crashed in race one and his 25th was
the score America threw away. The individual headline went to a rider
this site has spent a year scoring: Jorge Prado won the MXGP
class on 2-2, tied with Romain Febvre's 1-3 on four points
and taking it on the better final race.
Belgium's counted five: 3, 4, 4, 5, 7. No wins, no scores outside the
top seven.
We already have four motos of evidence on Sacha Coenen. He scored at a higher rate than the champion.
The Coenen twins signed with Red Bull KTM for America on August 25,
and most of what has been written about them since is projection. It
does not have to be: both rode Pro Motocross as wildcards in 2026, and
the results are already in this site's dataset.
Sacha Coenen went 1-1 at Southwick in his second
American start, winning the round outright, and finished the year with
83 points from four motos — 20.75 a moto, against 250 champion
Cole Davies's 18.50 across his 22. Lucas Coenen's number is
narrower and comes with a hole in it: 2-2 for second overall at Thunder
Valley is 22.0 a moto, fractionally ahead of Hunter Lawrence's
championship-winning 21.55, but in his other visit he was 29th in moto
one and did not start moto two. Two rounds is two rounds. The useful
caveat is which two: the round Sacha swept was Southwick, the deepest
sand on the calendar and the one track most like the ones he grew up
on, while Lucas's good day was Thunder Valley at altitude and his bad
one was the sand. Neither twin has ridden a Supercross track in
anger, and that is where a 2027 season is won or lost.
Sacha Coenen, 83 points in four motos. Cole Davies, 407 in twenty-two.
Per moto: 20.75 to 18.50.
The 2027 tracker → Source: supermotocross.com, promotocross.com. Points and averages are this site's own 2026 data.
Analysis2027 Calendar October 6, 2026
Supercross changes six of its seventeen stadiums for 2027. Pro Motocross changes nothing at all.
The 2027 calendar landed on October 1 and the presale opened on
Tuesday. Seventeen Supercross rounds from January 9 to May 15, eleven
outdoor rounds from May 29 to August 28, three playoff rounds in
September, all on the same formats and the same points table as 2026 —
so the only news in it is geography. Compare the two schedules and
six of the seventeen stadiums are ones the 2026 field did not
race: Houston, Birmingham, St. Louis, Nashville, Cleveland and
Philadelphia come off, and San Antonio, Tampa, Foxborough, Baltimore,
East Rutherford and Pittsburgh go on. The Alamodome and M&T Bank
Stadium host a round for the first time. The outdoor series, by
contrast, runs the same eleven tracks in the same order
— which is the quiet argument for why outdoor form is the more
transferable number of the two. Still unannounced: the 250SX East and
West split, the three Triple Crown rounds, and all three SMX Playoff
venues. Several outlets have published a likely Showdown trio; the AMA
has not, so it is not on our schedule page.
Six of seventeen stadiums new to the field. Eleven of eleven outdoor
tracks unchanged.
The top four of the SMX championship all stay. Six of the next eight are gone.
Jorge Prado, Haiden Deegan, Hunter Lawrence and Ken Roczen — first
through fourth in the final 450 SMX standings — are all signed where
they are. Below them the class comes apart: of the eight riders who
finished fifth to twelfth, six are changing teams or have
retired. Cooper Webb leaves a factory Yamaha for Team Tedder
Husqvarna, Malcolm Stewart goes to Kawasaki, Aaron Plessinger to
Triumph after five years at KTM, R.J. Hampshire is reported at Ducati,
and Eli Tomac and Dylan Ferrandis have both stopped racing. Only
Garrett Marchbanks and Jordon Smith stay put. The pattern is not
random: the riders with somewhere to be are the ones who were winning,
and the churn starts exactly where the championship stopped being
competitive.
Positions 1–4: all staying. Positions 5–12: six of eight moving or
retired.
AnalysisSilly Season · Husqvarna September 29, 2026
Rockstar Energy Husqvarna is closing, and 1,568 points have to go somewhere
The single biggest cause of movement this off-season is a team
shutting its doors. Five riders carried on the Rockstar Energy
Husqvarna books in 2026 — R.J. Hampshire, Malcolm Stewart, Ryder
DiFrancesco, Daxton Bennick and Casey Cochran — scored
1,568 regular-season points and 409 playoff points
between them, and all of them need seats. That is not a fringe
operation folding. DiFrancesco finished second in the 250 SMX
championship, holding the place by a single point over Cole
Davies; Hampshire
was fifth outdoors in the 450 class on 346 points, the best season of
any rider now out of contract. In the 250 class alone the displaced
riders accounted for 13.6% of all playoff points scored. Red Bull KTM
is reported to be absorbing most of the team's staff along with
DiFrancesco and Bennick, which turns one team closing into one team
getting substantially stronger.
13.6% of every point scored in the 250 SMX playoffs belonged to a team
that will not exist in 2027.
Who lands where → Source: vitalmx.com, vurbmoto.com, racerxonline.com
FeatureRetirements · 2026 September 29, 2026
Eli Tomac and Dylan Ferrandis rode their last race on the same afternoon
Both retirements were announced before the Final and both took effect
at it. Tomac finished twelfth at Thunder Ridge in his
last professional start, closing seventeen seasons with
57 premier-class Supercross wins — second on the
all-time list — and 32 in 450 Pro Motocross, fourth all-time. Ferrandis
was fifteenth in his, ending a career that began in 2017 and produced a
250 Supercross title and a 450 Pro Motocross title, in Ducati's first
season in the series. Neither went out on a result worth remembering,
which is the ordinary way these things end. What leaves with them is
840 regular-season points across the two disciplines.
In 450 Supercross alone the pair accounted for 11.2% of every point
scored this year; in the 450 playoffs, 9.1%. Tomac's 2026
was better than the farewell suggests — fourth in Supercross with four
main event wins at 33, then a partial outdoor season.
57 Supercross wins and 32 outdoor wins, and the last race was a
twelfth.
Tomac's career record → Source: ktm.com, racerxonline.com, promotocross.com, supermotocross.com
Season Wrap2026 · All three series September 28, 2026
Three 450 championships, three different champions, and not one margin in double figures
Ken Roczen won Supercross by three points. Hunter
Lawrence won Pro Motocross by two. Jorge Prado won the
SMX World Championship by seven. Three titles across
nine months, three different winners, and the combined margin was
twelve points. None of the three had won that particular championship
before. The through-line is that the sport's two deepest fields and its
playoff format all produced the same answer — that in 2026 nobody was
far enough clear of anybody to make a season safe. Jett Lawrence, the
only rider who had ever won an SMX title, lost the outdoor championship
by two points and then missed the playoffs entirely for ankle surgery.
In the 250 class Cole Davies won 250SX East and Pro Motocross, arrived
as the top playoff seed, and finished third after two bad afternoons —
then swept the finale by way of an argument.
Twelve points separated the winners from the runners-up across three
championships and thirty-one race days.
Haiden Deegan won the race. Jorge Prado won the million.
Deegan led Moto 1 from the holeshot to the flag and Prado, who started
tenth, dragged himself to fifth. That left the championship on one
moto. Prado took the Moto 2 holeshot, Deegan came at him for twenty
minutes, and Prado won it by 1.7 seconds — second
overall on the day, first in the championship by seven. He is the first
Spanish-born SMX champion. The arithmetic we published that morning
said a podium would do it regardless of who took the flag, and that is
exactly what happened: Deegan's 1-2 was the best ride of the afternoon
and it was worth 75 points against Prado's 66. Hunter Lawrence went 3-3
for third on the day and third in the championship, 22 back, having
started the playoffs as the top seed. Ken Roczen was fourth, Cooper Webb
fifth, and neither moved.
Prado did not win a single moto in the first two playoff rounds. He won
the one that paid 75.
Cole Davies swept the finale six weeks too late; Levi Kitchen rode to second and won everything
Davies won Moto 1 by 2.1 seconds and Moto 2 by 6.4, the most
comprehensive ride anyone produced in the playoffs, and it moved him
from seventh in the standings to third. Kitchen went 2-2
behind him, never contested either moto, and won the championship by 24
— the first professional title of his career, after
losing the 250 outdoor championship late in the summer. Ryder
DiFrancesco, three points behind going in and the one rider who could
take it from Kitchen on the day, was third in Moto 1 and tenth in Moto 2
for seventh overall; he kept second in the championship by a single
point over Davies. Landen Gordon, seeded twentieth and last of the
automatic qualifiers on two points, finished third on the day and fifth
in the championship.
Davies: 10th, 14th, 1st. The finale sweep was worth 75 points and one
place in the standings.
Two rounds of the playoffs decided less than the one still to come
The SMX Final at Thunder Ridge Nature Arena in Ridgedale, Missouri
pays triple — 75 points to the winner, against a
sixteen-point lead in the 450 class and a three-point lead in the 250.
Jorge Prado's position is better than the gap makes it look. A
third-place finish puts him on 152 and the best any rival can reach is
151, so a podium ends it no matter who wins the race.
Fourth place is where it gets interesting: 146, which Haiden Deegan or
Hunter Lawrence beat by winning. The 250 class has no such cushion.
Levi Kitchen leads Ryder DiFrancesco by three with 75 on offer, which
means the margin is thinner than it is decisive: if DiFrancesco
finishes one place ahead of Kitchen anywhere in the top three the title
is his, but one place ahead from fourth back is a dead heat on points.
Julien Beaumer, sixteen adrift and the winner at Carson, has to win the
Final and have Kitchen finish fourth or worse.
Prado has scored 70 points in two playoff rounds. One afternoon at
Thunder Ridge is worth 75.
Race RecapSMX Playoff 2 · Carson September 19, 2026
Jorge Prado fell in the sand at Carson and still won the round
A 2-2 won the overall at Dignity Health Sports Park,
which tells you more about the afternoon than about Prado. He crashed
in the sand and finished second twice; nobody else managed better than
4-1. Ken Roczen led Moto 1 and dropped to fourth in Moto 2 for third
overall. Hunter Lawrence went the other way, fourth then a Moto 2 win,
and took second — his answer to a Columbus round that paid him
seven points. Haiden Deegan was third in both motos for
fourth, the first time in the playoffs he has been beaten. With double
points applied, Prado banked 50 to Lawrence's 44 and Deegan's 36, and
left California sixteen clear of two riders tied on 76.
Cooper Webb was fifth in both motos and sits fifth, twenty back.
Prado won a round in which he crashed and never led a moto.
Julien Beaumer won Carson and is still sixteen points from the title
Beaumer went 1-3 for the overall and doubled it to 50 points, which
moved him from tenth in the standings to third and still leaves him
sixteen adrift. That is the shape of a three-round championship with
escalating multipliers: he was 18th at Columbus, scored four points for
it, and one good afternoon could not undo it. Ryder DiFrancesco was
second on 2-5 and closed to within three of the lead. Levi Kitchen
went 7-1 — a bad first moto and the fastest rider on
track in the second — for third overall, which was enough to keep the
points lead he took at Columbus. Jo Shimoda was fourth. Cole Davies,
the 250 outdoor champion and the top seed here, crashed his way to
4-22 and out of contention in an afternoon.
Kitchen's worst moto of the playoffs and his best came on the same
day, ninety minutes apart.
Race RecapSMX Playoff 1 · Columbus September 12, 2026
Haiden Deegan swept the mud at Columbus for his first 450 overall
Rain turned Historic Crew Stadium into a mud pit and officials
shortened the motos to preserve it — 15 minutes plus a lap, then 12.
Deegan won both, in his twelfth premier-class start and his first
playoff round on a 450. Ken Roczen, racing for the first time since
winning the Supercross title and having skipped the outdoor season
entirely, went 2-2 on a track that rewarded nobody's fitness. Jorge
Prado was third. The afternoon's real damage was to the top seed:
Hunter Lawrence went 21-8 for 15th. He began the day
first on points, three clear of Prado on seeding alone, and ended it
sixth and ten behind. Joey Savatgy took fifth on 8-5, and Jason
Anderson ran fifth in Moto 1 before finishing 22nd in Moto 2.
Hunter Lawrence started the playoffs first on points. He left
Columbus sixth.
Levi Kitchen goes 2-2 in the mud and takes the red plate he lost outdoors
Kitchen lost the 250 outdoor championship late and started the playoffs
second-seeded on 22 points. A pair of seconds at Columbus was the
steadiest ride of a filthy afternoon and gave him the overall on 25
points and the standings lead. Daxton Bennick won Moto 1 and was third
in Moto 2 for second overall; Ryder DiFrancesco took third. The most
striking line on the sheet belongs to Cole Davies, the
outdoor champion and top seed, who was scored 22nd in Moto 1 and then
won Moto 2 — tenth overall, and 12 points from a round
he might have won. Julien Beaumer, the fifth seed, went 16-18 for 18th
and four points.
Cole Davies: 22nd in one moto, first in the next, tenth on the day.
Jett Lawrence is out of the playoffs he has never lost
Lawrence will miss all three rounds of the SMX Playoffs and has
surgery on his right ankle on Wednesday at the Steadman Clinic in
Vail, Colorado. He hurt it training last December, rode the whole
outdoor season on it, and aggravated it in the opening moto at
Ironman. He finished that moto 11th, took sixth overall on the day,
and lost the championship by two points the same afternoon. He is the
only 450 champion the playoff format has had, winning all three
series since it launched in 2023. He had earned the fourth seed for
this one and would have started on 18 points, seven behind his
brother. "I've made the decision with my team to sit out the SMX
series to get my ankle back to 100% for the longevity of my career,"
he said.
Three playoff series since 2023. Three championships. He will not
start the fourth.
Hunter Lawrence lost Supercross by three points and won Pro Motocross by two
He finished the Supercross season three points behind Ken Roczen. He
finished the outdoor season two points ahead of his brother.
474 to 472 across eleven rounds and twenty-two motos,
which works out to a margin of roughly one position in one moto. Hunter
took six overall wins to Jett's four and they tied on nine podiums
each. The title turned on Unadilla, where Hunter won Moto 1 and was
classified 39th in Moto 2, then turned back a week later at Budds
Creek, where he went 1-1 and retook the lead by a single point. A
Lawrence won the first ten rounds of the season. Jorge Prado ended that
at Ironman with the only 1-1 of his year, and finished fourth. Haiden
Deegan took third on 404 points without winning a round all summer.
Eleven rounds, 22 motos, 946 points scored between the two brothers,
and two of them separate the champion from the runner-up.
Jorge Prado sweeps Ironman; Hunter Lawrence rides to the title in fourth
Prado went 1-1 from pole for the only overall win of his season, and
the only round in 2026 that did not go to a Lawrence. Behind him the
championship was being managed rather than raced: Hunter needed to stay
near his brother and did, going 8-4 to Jett's 11-3, which settled the
title 474 to 472. R.J. Hampshire took second overall
on 2-6, his only podium of the entire season, and Cooper Webb was third
on 3-8. Eli Tomac finished fifth in what was his best result since
returning at Spring Creek. Haiden Deegan salvaged second in Moto 2
after a Moto 1 that ended 16th, which cost him nothing, as third was
already secured.
Ten rounds, ten Lawrence wins. The eleventh went to Prado.
Cole Davies wins the 250 title in a season where he also won 250SX East
Julien Beaumer won the finale on 2-1 scores, taking the overall from
Chance Hymas on countback with both riders on 47 points. It did not
matter to the championship. Davies went 3-13 for seventh, which was
more than enough: he finished on 407 points, 38 clear of
Beaumer, and adds the outdoor title to the 250SX East
championship he won in the spring. Levi Kitchen's season ended without
a score, 40th in Moto 1 and absent from Moto 2, dropping him into a
364-point tie with Hymas that the tiebreak gave to Kitchen. Hymas was
the strongest rider of the closing stretch, 47 points at Budds Creek
and 47 again here, and it still only got him fourth.
Kitchen and Hymas finished level on 364 points. Kitchen got third on
the tiebreak.
Race RecapBudds Creek · Rd 10 · 450MX August 22, 2026
Hunter Lawrence answers Unadilla with a 1-1 and takes the red plate back by one point
Seven days after losing the championship lead in the worst way
available, Hunter won both motos at Budds Creek. Jett went 5-2 for
fourth overall, which flipped a ten-point deficit into a one-point
lead: 442 to 441 with one round left. Prado took
second on 3-3 and Deegan third on 2-4, the pair separated only by
Prado's better second moto. Garrett Marchbanks, who we had fifth,
finished eleventh on 9-11.
One point, one round left, and the two riders involved share a surname
and a garage.
Race RecapBudds Creek · Rd 10 · 250MX August 22, 2026
Chance Hymas wins Budds Creek and Levi Kitchen's championship quietly slips away
Hymas went 2-1 for his first overall win of the season. The
consequential ride was behind him: Davies went 1-3 for second while
Kitchen could only manage 14th in Moto 1, recovering to second in Moto
2 for fifth overall. Thirty points against forty-five turned a
one-point deficit into a fourteen-point lead for Davies
heading to the finale. Landen Gordon took a career-best third on 3-7.
Ryder DiFrancesco, running fourth in the championship, went 6-25 and
lost touch with the podium places.
Hunter Lawrence won Moto 1 at Unadilla and left New York ten points behind his brother
Hunter took Moto 1 and the championship looked settled. He came out of
Moto 2 classified 39th, a lap down, and the ten points he led by that
morning became ten points he trails by. Jett went 2-1 for the overall,
his fourth win of the season and his first since Southwick, and now
carries the red plate into the final two weekends on
402 points to Hunter's 392. Jorge
Prado was the most consistent rider on the property with a 3-2 for
second overall; Haiden Deegan's 4-3 keeps him mathematically alive on
336, though he needs two-thirds of the remaining hundred points and
help. The sharpest ride of the day belonged to Mark Fineis, 21st in
Moto 1 and fifth in Moto 2. Garrett Marchbanks took fourth overall,
his best of the season, three weeks after a Washougal Moto 1 that
ended 39th and scored him nothing.
Hunter Lawrence has led the 2026 championship after every round since
May 30. He does not lead it now.
One point: Cole Davies wins Unadilla and all but erases Levi Kitchen's lead
Davies crashed hard in the second qualifying session, went over the bars
onto his shoulder, and had the bike run over his legs. He then went 2-1
and won the round. Kitchen won Moto 1 and led the class on the road, but
a first-lap tangle in Moto 2 dropped him to 23rd and he recovered only to
sixth. That swing is the whole story:
Kitchen 334, Davies 333, with two rounds left. Chance
Hymas went 4-2 for third and sits fifth on 270. Julien Beaumer, third in
the championship, had his quietest day in a month with a 9-13 and lost
ground to everyone above him. Brodie Connolly's 8-5 for sixth was by
some distance his best result of the season.
One point separates the 250 championship with 100 still on the table.
Hunter Lawrence survives a Moto 1 spill to win RedBud and take back the red plate
Hunter led Moto 1 late, went down out front, remounted for second,
then won Moto 2 outright for a 2-1 overall, his third win of the
season and second in a row. Brother Jett won Moto 1 but crashed away
the lead in Moto 2 and salvaged fifth, ending third overall on 1-5;
Jorge Prado holeshot both motos for a 3-2 and second. With Jett's
stumble, Hunter leaves Michigan back on top of the championship,
227 points, four clear of Jett, with six rounds
left.
Two brothers, two Moto 1 leads, two crashes. Hunter got back up in
time. Jett didn't. Four points now separate them.
Cole Davies doubles up, the season's first repeat 250 winner
A week after his breakthrough at High Point, Davies backed it up
with a 1-2 at RedBud to become the first two-time 250MX winner of
2026. Jo Shimoda answered with a 3-1 for second and, more
importantly, keeps the points lead, 192, six up on
Davies. Ryder DiFrancesco's 6-3 earned the first overall
podium of his 250MX career. Levi Kitchen's quiet 4-5 dropped him
from the top of the standings to third.
Antonio Cairoli guest-rides RedBud, and runs inside the top 12
The nine-time world champion lined up as a 450 wildcard on the #222
Ducati and went 12-13 for 12th overall against a full factory field
, a genuinely competitive cameo from a rider who hasn't run a full
outdoor season in years. He wasn't the only European guest, either:
MXGP's Roan Van De Moosdijk was in the mix too.
Hunter Lawrence sweeps High Point; Cole Davies breaks through for his first 250 win
Hunter Lawrence went a perfect 1-1 at High Point to answer Jett's
Thunder Valley double and keep the 450 title fight razor-thin. In
the 250s, Cole Davies turned early-season speed into a maiden
overall, also 1-1, the 250SX East champion translating outdoors in
real time. Julien Beaumer went 2-2 for second; Jo Shimoda's steady
3-4 kept him atop the points.
Race RecapThunder Valley · Rd 3 · MX June 13, 2026
The Coenen twins arrive, and Jett makes it two in a row at altitude
Jett Lawrence went 1-1 at high-altitude Thunder Valley for his
second straight win, but the story was the debut of the Coenen
brothers. Lucas Coenen ran a stunning 2-2 for second overall in his
first 450MX start; in the 250s, Sacha Coenen won Moto 2 outright,
though Jo Shimoda's 3-2 took the overall.
A 2-2 in your first American outdoor national is not a soft landing.
Lucas Coenen served notice at 6,000 feet.
Jett Lawrence wins his first race back from injury; Cooper's day ends early
Two weeks after a quiet opener, Jett Lawrence went 1-1 at Hangtown
for his first win since a pre-season ankle injury, brother Hunter's
2-2 keeping the red plate close. Levi Kitchen answered his Fox
Raceway Moto 2 mistake with a clean 2-2 to win the 250 overall. The
day turned costly elsewhere: Justin Cooper's Moto 2 ended early, the
start of an injury that would sideline him.
Hunter Lawrence sweeps the Pala opener; Tomac a no-show
The outdoor season opened at Fox Raceway with Hunter Lawrence in
total control, pole, then a 1-1 for 50 points and the first red
plate of 2026. Seth Hammaker took the 250 opener on 2-1 scores after
pole-sitter Levi Kitchen threw away a big day with a Moto 2 P13. The
notable absence: Eli Tomac qualified tenth but did not start either
moto, opening his season on the sidelines.
Ken Roczen wins his first 450SX title, thirteen seasons in
Roczen finished fifth at Salt Lake City. Chase Sexton won the race
for his fourth straight SLC finale win, and Hunter Lawrence finished
seventh, the exact set of results Roczen needed to take the title
by three points. At 32 years old, Roczen became the oldest 450SX
champion in Supercross history (the previous record was Tomac at 29
in 2022). He is the first European to win the premier class in
thirty-five years, since Jean-Michel Bayle in 1991, and
the first German ever. Suzuki picked up its first 450SX
championship since Ryan Dungey in 2010.
Five wins. Twelve podiums. Same totals as Hunter Lawrence. Two
positions across seventeen rounds separated them.
Cole Davies pays back the 2025 Denver incident at the SLC Showdown
The 19-year-old New Zealander wrapped up the 250SX East title a
round early, then showed up to the East/West Showdown finale and
made a point. On lap 9, Davies put a hard block-pass on Haiden
Deegan in a corner, eerily reminiscent of the move Deegan put on
him in Denver the previous year, when they were Star Racing
teammates. Davies took the win and the message landed. Monster Star
Racing split the two into East and West to prevent exactly this
kind of incident; it didn't help at the only round both regions
raced together.
Cooper Webb's 2025 title: a clinic in points-preservation racing
Sexton won seven races. Webb won five. Sexton entered the Salt Lake
City finale with a nine-point deficit but only needed to outscore
Webb by ten to take the championship. He won the race by almost
ten seconds. He lost the title by two points. The reason: Webb let
Sexton uncontested past him early, then fought Malcolm Stewart
tooth-and-nail for second place, sacrificing fight against the
leader to protect points against everyone else. The number-one plate
for Webb's third title is, mathematically, the result of refusing to
chase. It's the kind of championship that gets you on a short list
of seven riders ever to win three or more 450SX titles.
Jett Lawrence's rookie 450SX title, and what it actually meant
Eight wins. Twenty years old. Won his premier-class debut at
Anaheim 1, the first rider to ever do that. Third ever to take the
450SX title in a rookie season. The catch: Lawrence had already won
the 2023 Pro Motocross 450 championship in a literal perfect season,
so calling 2024 a "rookie" year was always a generous reading. AMA
and Feld officially branded the 2024 season "the most competitive
in Supercross history", and Lawrence won it anyway, while sounding
in post-race press conferences like a kid who had just won a karting
championship at a county fair.
Lawrence's eight wins were the second-most ever by a 450SX rookie,
trailing only Jeremy McGrath's ten in 1993.
Sexton's 2023 comeback was the Bailey '83 of the modern era
Twenty-five points down to Eli Tomac with five rounds to go.
Sitting third, not second. Most title fights are over at that
point. Sexton wasn't told that. He won Detroit, won Atlanta, won
Nashville. Tomac entered Denver with an eighteen-point lead, then
over-jumped a triple, landed hard, and ruptured his Achilles
tendon mid-race. Sexton inherited the points lead with one round
left, drove from the holeshot for twenty-five unchallenged laps at
Salt Lake City, and won the championship by eighteen seconds. It
was the largest late-season points comeback in 450SX history since
David Bailey rallied from third to first across the final five
rounds of 1983. Honda's first 450SX title in twenty years.
The Lawrence brothers swept both 250SX regions, a first in series history
Jett took the 250SX West (five wins in eight rounds before
graduating to the 450 class). Hunter took the 250SX East (seven
wins in nine rounds). The Lawrence brothers became the first
siblings ever to win both regional 250SX championships in the same
season, and the first to simultaneously hold the red plate on
opposite coasts. Honda hadn't had a 250SX championship sweep like
this in the East/West split era. It was, in the most clinical
sense, a family-business takeover.
Tomac breaks Carmichael's Daytona record, on a track Carmichael designed
Daytona Supercross is run on a course Ricky Carmichael has designed
for fifteen consecutive years. Carmichael also holds the all-time
wins record at the venue. Carmichael also calls the race from the
booth. In 2022, Eli Tomac entered tied with him at five Daytona
wins. With less than a minute left on the clock, Tomac was running
second behind Cooper Webb when Webb had the only bobble of his
night in heavy lapped traffic. Tomac swept past and won his sixth
Daytona, breaking the record on the GOAT's own race track, with
the GOAT calling it live. The kind of thing that happens once.
Eli Tomac, debut season on Yamaha, becomes oldest 450SX champ ever
Tomac left Kawasaki for Monster Star Racing Yamaha for 2022. By
round three at San Diego he was on the podium. By the season's
midpoint he was leading. At Denver, round sixteen, a fifth-place
finish was enough to clinch his second 450SX title. He was 29
years old, which at the time made him the oldest 450SX champion
in the sport's then-49-year history. (Roczen would push the record
to 32 four years later, but Tomac held it for the full quadrennial.)
The bigger story: it was Yamaha's first 450SX title since James
Stewart, thirteen seasons earlier in 2009.
Sources: NBC Sports, Racer X, supercrosslive.com news archive, Honda
Racing Corporation press, Monster Energy AMA Supercross press, Yamaha
Motor press, and the Wikipedia AMA Supercross season pages (2022–2026).
Stats verified against the live championship-standings feed.