As a young baseball fan, you were always reminded of certain numbers. Fifty-six. 765. 2,632. Baseball fans are so obsessed with stats, it actually spawned an entirely new way to look at the game—sabermetrics. Batting average and runs batted in (RBIs) are no longer enough, as baseball fans now have terms like OOPS, WHIP, dERA, and other statistics which help those around the league determine the value of players.
Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game helped shine the light on sabermetrics, and the phenomenon really hit mainstream with the Moneyball movie starring Brad Pitt. While companies such as LitPro are helping motocross experts find a way to look deeper into why one rider is turning a faster lap time than the other, these statistics aren’t readily available to the public, so the major benefit is to the teams.
There are still a few numbers that stick out to any fan—72, 24-0—but for the most part, we’re not a statistics-crazed sport.
Each year, prior to the start of the season, we look back at the all-time list of premier class wins in Monster Energy Supercross. With Ryan Dungey’s 34 career wins (sixth all-time) coming off the books, and James Stewart (second all-time) and Chad Reed (fourth all-time) yet to announce their plans for next year, the landscape in the 450 Class appears to be wide open. The start of this year will mark only the fourth time in history (1980, 1983, 2015) that the defending premier class champion did not return to defend his title.
The entire list is below, but here are some key notes:
- If James Stewart and Chad Reed were to line up at Anaheim 1 (Reed, at least, is expected to race), their combined 94 career wins will account for 71.2 percent of the active wins in the class.
- Behind nine wins in 2017, Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Eli Tomac moved into 15th on the all-time list and is now two wins ahead of Ken Roczen.
- Nine riders who could compete during the 2018 season have at least one win.
- Five riders who could compete during the 2018 season have five or more career wins.
- Only two active riders who could compete in 2018—James Stewart and Chad Reed—have premier class championships on their resume (two each).
- Ryan Dungey, who won three straight 450SX titles before retiring last May, is tied for third all-time with Ryan Villopoto with four career titles. Villopoto is ahead in wins, 41 to 34.
Ranking Rider All-Time Wins Championships 1 Jeremy McGrath 72 7 2 *James Stewart 50 2 3 Ricky Carmichael 48 5 4 *Chad Reed 44 2 5 Ryan Villopoto 41 4 6 Ryan Dungey 34 4 7 Ricky Johnson 28 2 8 Bob Hannah 27 3 9 Jeff Ward 20 2 10 Damon Bradshaw 19 11 Kevin Windham 18 12 Jeff Stanton 17 3 12 Mark Barnett 17 1 14 Jean-Michel Bayle 16 1 15 *Eli Tomac 13 16 Ezra Lusk 12 16 David Bailey 12 1 18 Mike Bell 11 1 18 *Ken Roczen 11 20 Mike LaRocco 10 20 Broc Glover 10 22 Ron Lechien 8 22 Jimmy Ellis 8 24 David Vuillemin 7 24 Jeff Emig 7 1 24 Johnny O'Mara 7 1 27 Trey Canard 5 27 *Davi Millsaps 5 27 Mike Kiedrowski 5 27 Kent Howerton 5 31 Doug Henry 4 31 Donnie Hansen 4 1 31 Darrell Shultz 4 31 Jimmy Weinert 4 35 Larry Ward 3 35 Marty Smith 3 35 *Jason Anderson 3 38 *Justin Barcia 2 38 Marty Tripes 2 38 Tony DiStefano 2 38 *Marvin Musquin 2 42 *Cole Seely 1 42 *Josh Grant 1 42 Josh Hill 1 42 Nathan Ramsey 1 42 John Dowd 1 42 Sebastien Tortelli 1 42 Damon Huffman 1 42 Greg Albertyn 1 42 Mike Craig 1 42 Doug Dubach 1 42 Jeff Matiasevich 1 42 Rick Ryan 1 42 Rex Staten 1 42 Chuck Sun 1 42 Steve Wise 1 42 Gaylon Mosier 1 42 Jaroslav Falta 1 42 Jim Pomeroy 1 42 Pierre Karsmakers 1 1 42 Andrew Short 1 *Active rider
