By Aaron Hansel and Jason Weigandt
What’s Silicon Valley going to do with all this big data? What’s the NSA got on you? What Ivy-League educated mathematician is ready to revolutionize stick-and-ball sports through new stats?
Numbers are the rage now, and since we’ve got a full season of Monster Energy Supercross and Lucas Oil Pro Motocross under our belt, we decided to do some data mining ourselves for this week’s The List.
First, the Grand National Champion. A long, long, time ago the AMA handed out a Grand National Championship to the rider who collected the most total combined points in supercross and motocross. That title hasn’t been handed out since the 1980s, but such a total still makes for easy bench racing fodder. Who were the best riders when you combine the season’s 450 SX and 450 MX points? Have a look.
| Rider | MX Points | SX Points | O/A Points | |||
| Ryan Dungey | 518 | 304 | 822 | |||
| Ken Roczen | 532 | 285 | 817 | |||
| Trey Canard | 468 | 77 | 545 | |||
| Andrew Short | 302 | 218 | 520 | |||
| James Stewart | 226 | 272 | 498 | |||
| Eli Tomac | 319 | 115 | 434 | |||
| Weston Peick | 290 | 120 | 410 | |||
| Ryan Villopoto | 0 | 368 | 368 | |||
| Josh Grant | 259 | 98 | 357 | |||
| Justin Brayton | 155 | 196 | 351 | |||
| Brett Metcalfe | 334 | 0 | 334 | |||
| Chad Reed | 198 | 111 | 309 | |||
| Justin Barcia | 52 | 250 | 302 | |||
| Matt Goerke | 149 | 75 | 224 | |||
| Fredrik Noren | 207 | 0 | 207 | |||
| Ben LaMay | 164 | 20 | 184 | |||
| Jake Weimer | 93 | 73 | 166 | |||
| Josh Hill | 0 | 159 | 159 | |||
| Phil Nicoletti | 131 | 23 | 154 | |||
| Malcolm Stewart | 128 | 1 | 129 | |||
| Broc Tickle | 0 | 126 | 126 | |||
Wow, look at how close Dungey and Roczen are! Amazing to think that after twenty-nine races over the course of nine months, just 5 points separated their season totals. Equally well done for KTM, who adds Andrew Short here to take three of the top four slots in combined points standings.
Now to look at the points from a manufacturer perspective. With KTM’s rise, Kawasaki reeling off another 450SX title, Yamaha jumping into the rejuvenation machine, and Honda winning races in both classes, this is a good time for parity between brands in the sport. Here’s a look at how each brand did in each class this year, combining supercross and motocross points.
*Note: We only grabbed points from the top twenty overall finishers in each class and each series.
250
| Bike | KX250F | CRF250 | RM-Z250 | 250 SX-F | YZ250F |
| SX Wins | 10 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 1 |
| Moto Wins | 5 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 14 |
| SX Points | 977 | 1866 | 0 | 345 | 499 |
| MX Points | 891 | 1432 | 0 | 905 | 1570 |
| O/A Bike Points | 1868 | 3298 | 0 | 1250 | 2069 |
Wow, check out Honda’s huge advantage! The brand gets a nice boost from having two top-notch 250 teams in GEICO Honda and Lucas Oil/Troy Lee Designs Honda, but the real MVPs were all the privateers who rode CRF250Rs throughout the season, like third-ranked 250SX East Region pilot Vince Friese.
450
| Bikes | KX450F | CRF450 | RM-Z450 | 450SX-F | YZ450F |
| SX Wins | 9 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 0 |
| Moto Wins | 0 | 6 | 3 | 14 | 1 |
| SX Points | 654 | 642 | 800 | 882 | 294 |
| MX Points | 625 | 1126 | 516 | 1674 | 787 |
| O/A Bike Points | 1279 | 1768 | 1316 | 2556 | 1081 |
Well, judging by what you know from the Grand National points above, did you expect anything less from the KTM 450SX-F?
| Manufacturer | Kawsaki | Honda | Suzuki | KTM | Yamaha |
| SX Wins | 19 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 1 |
| Moto Wins | 5 | 7 | 3 | 18 | 15 |
| SX Points | 1631 | 2508 | 800 | 1227 | 793 |
| MX Points | 1516 | 2558 | 516 | 2579 | 2357 |
| O/A Brand Points | 3147 | 5066 | 1316 | 3806 | 3150 |
So, who scored the most total points with all classes and series’ combined? Honda wins it, which is impressive considering the brand locked down just one title (250SX East Region with Justin Bogle) and had all four of its main 450 riders (Trey Canard, Justin Barcia, Eli Tomac, and Wil Hahn) miss a ton of time with injury. Overall, the gates had plenty of red this year, though, which made up the difference.
