Three SX class winners: Ryan Villopoto, Ryan Dungey and Chad Reed. Three Lites class winners: Cole Seely, Dean Wilson and Eli Tomac. The six-pack of winners stands as the ultimate sign of Monster Energy Supercross parity, but before someone goes out and ruins it with season win number two, we decided to dig back into the record books and figure out if such a start is really this rare.
Turns out it is.
First of all, just witnessing three winners in the first three rounds of the premier class is a surprise. Hasn’t happened since 2003, when Chad Reed, Ezra Lusk and Ricky Carmichael collected wins at Anaheim, Phoenix and Anaheim 2. The 125 (Lites) class also offered up two winners in the first two rounds, with Travis Preston and James Stewart. But Stewart repeated at round three.
The last time we witnessed such a feat was 1993.
Photo: Fran Kuhn
The last time we had six winners in six races? That was 1993, when Mike LaRocco, Damon Bradshaw and Jeremy McGrath won the 250 races at Orlando, Houston and Anaheim to start the year. In the 125s, Lusk, Jimmy Gaddis and Damon Huffman won the first three races. And then the parity ended. Why? Well, it’s telling that McGrath’s round three win in Anaheim marked the first 250 win of his career, because once he figured it out, he won his second race of the season (and his career) the next weekend. And then another the weekend after that and the weekend after that!
We’ll see if someone can break out this time.
