Welcome to Racerhead. What a difference a week can make. Just last Friday we were talking here about how it weas “no wonder why Eli Tomac ended up cruising the main event last Saturday night” in Nashville. The series points leader was not just cruising around at his home race in Denver—he was winning. And when he suddenly slowed down and rolled off the track on his red-plated #1 Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing YZ450F, there was a collective gulp that you could hear all over the sport. Was it his engine? Clutch? Chain? Brake pedal? But when it became obvious that it was an injury to his left leg, that gulp became a huge groan. In the bat of an eye everything changed—the 2023 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship, the upcoming AMA Pro Motocross Championship (where Eli is also the defending champion), the new SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX) in September, and even Team USA’s fortunes in the ’23 Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations in France in October, in which Eli was also going to be defending champion. All of that is likely over, as the Achilles tendon he ruptured is not an easy injury to overcome. It was a devastating blow to Eli, his team, and the series itself. What should have been an easy ride to the finish this weekend in Salt Lake City is instead now a long and slow recovery process. Get well soon, ET, we all want to see you back out there!
One man’s misfortune is another’s opportunity, and that man is Chase Sexton. The Honda factory rider unknowingly became the de facto 2023 AMA Supercross Champion before Tomac made it over to the Alpinestars Mobile Medical Unit. Sexton was the only man with any real shot at that point, as Red Bull KTM’s Cooper Webb went out with a concussion one week earlier in Nashville (soon to be followed by Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/GasGas rider Justin Barcia with a broken shoulder). If you’ve been following the series, you know that Sexton has given up a bunch of points on his own with crashes, so it’s hard to say he was just “gifted” this championship or somehow doesn’t deserve it. He’s outlasted a rather unfortunate list of the injured, and he’s also won his fair share of the races. He had to be out there and up there to take advantage of anyone else’s mistakes or misfortune. Congratulations to Chase and all of Team Honda on getting the brand their first premier AMA Supercross Championship since 2003, as well as their first AMA title for the CRF450R since Ricky Carmichael won the ’04 AMA Pro Motocross title. Add in the 250SX East and West Region titles for Hunter and Jett Lawrence and you have an amazing season for Team Honda. The last time this brand swept all three SX titles the riders involved were Jean-Michel Bayle (250), Jeremy McGrath (125SX West) and the late Brian Swink (125SX East), but this involved two different teams—Team Honda and Mitch Payton’s PEAK Anti-Freeze/Pro Circuit Honda satellite team.
And somewhere in New Hampshire, as well as Minnesota, two guys are smiling, and they deserve some credit for how this series ended. Rick “Ziggy” Zielfelder and Jeff Majkrzak were the men behind the GEICO Honda team that acted as Honda’s 250 program for many years, only to close its doors at the end of the COVID-19-struck 2020 season. They acted as the talent developer for Honda, taking athletes sometimes straight from the AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch to the pro ranks, hopefully from 250 to 450. That’s how it worked for Trey Canard, Justin Barcia, Eli Tomac, and most recently Chase Sexton, and starting at the first outdoor national at Fox Raceway at Pala in two weeks, Jett Lawrence. Ziggy and Jeff worked together to win 12 championships in the 250 class for Honda. Their last team—2020—included both Hunter and Jett Lawrence, as well as Jo Shimoda. Their ultimate plan was probably to do exactly what happened this year—help Honda win all three SX titles—and that finally happened.
Earlier this week I got a note from longtime Honda man Ray Conway, who is now semi-retired and working as a powersports consultant.
“On the eve of Team Honda ending its SX premier-class championship drought at 19 seasons, I have an observation. In 2009 when I was sent to the Motorcycle Sports department at American Honda the team’s "parts kid" was Brandon Wilson and our "test technician" (practically the lot-boy) was Lars Lindstrom. And now 14 years later Brandon is the manager of the Motorcycle Sports division (and Advertising) and Lars is the SX/MX team Manager and they have led Team HRC Honda to a sweep of all three 2023 SX championships and engineered the end of the 450 winless streak. (Lars is also the son on Gunnar Lindstrom, an American motocross pioneer and the Honda team manager in the late 1970s.)
Also, there were a lot of names that made the headlines this SX season: Eli Tomac, Chase Sexton, Justin Barcia, Jett and Hunter Lawrence, RJ Hampshire, Carson Mumford, Joe Shimoda, and behind the scenes Team Honda has Trey Canard as a test rider/consultant. What do all these guys have in common? They all passed through the Factory Connection/GEICO Honda race team. Jeff Majkrzak and Rick ‘Ziggy’ Ziefelder should get an atta-boy for getting all these guys started.”
And speaking of the Lawrence brothers, they are the headliners for tomorrow night’s East/West Showdown, which Feld Motor Sports long again named “the Dave Coombs Sr. Memorial East/West Shootout” after my dad, who passed away in 1998, but was very instrumental in creating this class in supercross, along with his friend and fellow promoter Bill West, back in 1985. Both brothers will be wearing read plates and white #1s, Hunter’s with an “E” and Jett’s with a “W.” If it looks familiar it’s because the last time Honda was able to do that was in 2012 when GEICO Honda teammates Tomac and Barcia both were #1 in the East/West Shootout.
Seeing Red in SLC 🔴🔴🔴 Photos: Align Media #SupercrossLIVE pic.twitter.com/PtLcvPCAcL
— Racer X (@racerxonline) May 12, 2023
Another look back moment: Just before Anaheim 1 back in January, a lot of us were wondering who would be the first to get their first-ever 450 supercross main event win?
Malcolm Stewart, Aaron Plessinger, Christian Craig, Adam Cianciarulo, Justin Cooper, Colt Nichols? Well, unless AC or AP somehow pulls it off tomorrow night, the answer will be no one. What a tough and crazy season this has been… But while we didn’t have a first-time winner, what we did have was Ken Roczen giving Suzuki and the RM-Z450 its first win in six years. His Indianapolis SX win was one of the high points of a series filled with them, and it seemed to bring Suzuki back from the brink. Some of us had him penciled in as a dark-horse favorite in the upcoming AMA Pro Motocross Championship, even more so after Eli’s departure. But on Monday we found out he’s sitting out motocross and will likely only be doing supercross (AMA SX and the FIM World Supercross Championship) and SMX moving forward. We will definitely miss the two-time 450 MX Champion this summer but look forward to seeing him back in September.
In closing, on the eve of the finale, it has been an excellent and exciting series to watch, though no ever one wants to see guys go down and out, and this season has been a bad one for that in both classes. Other than that unfortunate run of injuries, which came late, the 2023 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship has been a true success. Congratulations to Feld Motor Sports, all of the riders and their teams, and especially the champions.
Pro Perspective (Jason Thomas)
The finale is upon us! For most, it's a welcome end to a long series. The sentiment is typically one of fatigue by now, long months of racing and travel in the rear-view mirror. If nothing else, change is warranted as we cast our gaze upon Pro Motocross.
The most important thing for racers to understand about this weekend is the opportunity ahead. Knowing that most of your competition's thoughts are elsewhere gives a chance to improve your performance. Take advantage of their complacency. The championships are decided, and the suspense is at a season low. That's when some will rise up and deliver a career best performance. Riders like Dean Wilson, Shane McElrath, and Justin Hill are just a few that could make a podium push if things went their way. Others like Justin Starling, Kyle Chisholm, Josh Hill, Grant Harlan, or Kevin Moranz have a chance to creep towards that all-elusive top five finish. These are career defining moments that are there to be achieved. Most times, results like this are simply not available. There are too many race-winning level riders in the way. Every once in a while, though, this door opens. My advice? Don't walk through the door, blow it off the hinges. Make the absolute most of Saturday. You may never get another chance like this.
LCQ RACE (Matthes)
Well, we somehow pulled it off again! Feld Motor Sports gave us a PulpMX Privateer Race for the second year in a row and we got a bunch of deserving riders paid. Yamaha gave us a 2023 YZ450F (bike of the year!) to give away and we had a whole bunch of industry sponsors donate prizes as well. We sold $30 raffle tickets and made $147,000 off that for the eligible riders. That was an increase of almost 25K from last year, which continues to really blow me away. Thanks everyone.
And thanks to Harv Whipple with Feld for the help in organizing this race. We qualified riders out of the 450SX LCQ all year long plus some wild cards. Injured riders like Scotty Wennerstrom, Alex Ray, and John Short that qualified but couldn't race got a percent of the money raised and then we had almost 15K in prop bets from people like Adam Cianciarulo, Justin Brayton, and Christian Craig as well.
The Vurbmoto guys streamed it, JT, Weege, Justin Starling, and Daniel Blair all volunteered their time for the FXR video show we did. You can watch that below.
Below is the amount paid out to the riders as well as the winners of the prop bets. A good time was had by all and thank you Feld, Yamaha, and everyone who bought a ticket!
Title Time Tomorrow (Jason Weigandt)
We just wrapped up today’s press conference here in Salt Lake City. The top ten riders in each class got to ride some laps on the track, but also the 250SX East and West Champs (Hunter and Jett Lawrence) got to come to the stage and answer questions from the media. As did the 450SX Champion….er, make that points leader, Chase Sexton.
We talked a bit last week about the classy decision of Honda HRC team manager Lars Lindstrom to not celebrate taking the points lead last weekend in Denver. That would not have been respectful to Eli Tomac. Lars continued that theme this afternoon, even refusing to let the 450SX Championship Trophy appear on stage. Lars talked about what a gnarly competitor Eli is, and how it wouldn’t be right to celebrate while he is still the defending champion of the series. After the race, when the checkered flag falls tomorrow, if Sexton is still the points leader, then Honda can celebrate. Lars even joked about how tough Tomac is, with Eli riding off the track as if he wasn’t even in pain, despite having a ruptured Achilles.
“With how gnarly Eli is, I don’t know if he’s gonna strap on a bionic leg and come back out and race tomorrow and try to get those points back!” said Lindstrom.
Sexton echoed that today. He is not talking title yet. I did ask him about his humble roots in the Midwest, where he didn’t even get to ride 12 months a year. Sexton said he wouldn’t change it now, looking back, even though when he was a kid he was getting beaten by a lot of others, especially Austin Forkner, who Sexton admits beat him all the time. Sexton also said it has taken awhile to get past the intimidation factor of riders like Eli and Ken Roczen, who he had looked up to. He says battling Tomac all summer toe-to-toe in the AMA Pro Motocross Championship really helped him with that last step of belief. Also, Chase credited Christian Craig. Chase was a Yamaha rider coming up and had a chance to join Star Racing at one point. Then one day, randomly, he met Craig for the first time at a local track in Minnesota. Craig liked him, and called his father-in-law Jeff, who was co-owner of the old GEICO Honda team. He told Jeff that Chase was a good kid, and they should sign him. Chase credits that, meeting Craig, with taking his career to the next level. Finally, Chase said when he graduated off of a 250 here in Utah in 2020, he told Honda Racing’s Brandon Wilson that he was going to get it done for the team—he was going to win them a 450 title. He says, if it all works out tomorrow, it will be cool to have made good on that promise.
One other interesting thing. Jett Lawrence said that if Tomac were racing and the points were close, he and Hunter planned on racing the 450 class on their 250s! Maybe Tomac would get a bad start and they could put their bikes between Chase and Eli and steal some points. Wow. That would have been crazy. Leave it to Jett to give you some unfiltered talk.
That’s it. Great, wise, words from the Honda camp, which will be packing all the titles by tomorrow night.
New Deal For Mookie (Mitch Kendra)
Although he is still sidelined as he continues to recover from season-ending knee surgery, Malcolm Stewart has signed an extension with the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna team. The Florida native, currently in his second year of his initial two-year deal with the team, signed a two-year deal to remain on the factory Husqvarna team through the 2024 and 2025 SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX) seasons. Coming off his career-best third in 450SX standings in 2022, Stewart had crashes in the first two main events of the 2023 season hindered his results. Christian Craig, who is currently sidelined with an injury as well, is in the first of his two-year deal with the team as both riders are now locked in to return to the squad in 2024. This is the first multiple rider team to publicly set their lineup for next season as we expect to see some changes during the off-season. Justin Barcia (31 years old) has announced a two-year deal with the Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/GasGas Factory Racing team, and despite a season-ending injury for 30-year-old Eli Tomac, we might not have seen the last of the Colorado native.
Privateer Help (DC)
Jeff Mort is a former privateer, and he knows how difficult it can be to race SX/MX on a shoestring budget. As a result, he wants to help a rider or two out at the Fox Raceway National the weekend of the first round of the 2023 AMA Pro Motocross Championship by inviting them to use his motorhome for their base during the weekend.
“I’d like to sponsor a privateer for the weekend and provide him with a place to pit out of with air-conditioning, a bed to sleep in, cold drinks and healthy food,” he emailed. “I used to be in your shoes but slower and never made it into a main!”
Helping a fellow privateer try to pursue his dream for a weekend is a very kind thing for Jeff to do. We’ve got him hooked up with a cart pass for himself and his rig will be parked in the pro paddock. Anyone interested in Jeff’s generous offer, please send an email to: Jeffmort@ymail.com
More Than One Way to Skin a Cat (Mitch Kendra)
The FIM Motocross World Championship had a significant change prior to the start of the 2023 season in March. This year, the qualifying races (held on Saturday) would count towards the overall championship standings. The new rule announced February 3 read:
“First of all, the top ten qualifying riders from both classes MXGP and MX2 will score points as follows: the rider who wins the Qualifying Race will receive 10 points, the 2nd will receive 9 points and so on, in a sliding scale down to 1 point for the 10th position.”
While the qualifying points do not count towards the weekend’s overall points—that sticks to just combined points from the two motos on Sunday—the change brought a unique situation right off the bat: the overall winner at the first round did not leave with the points lead! Honda-mounted Ruben Fernandez finished 5-1 for 41 points and the overall win but did not have the red plate handed to him at the end of the day. And neither did second-place overall Jeffrey Herlings, who finished 4-2 in the motos (40 points). Instead, it was third-place overall Jorge Prado in the points lead! Prado 1-6 moto finishes (also 40 points), paired with the ten points from his qualifying win, had the #61 with a two-point lead over Fernandez in the standings, 50 points to 48 points. Kawasaki’s Romain Febvre sat third in the standings despite finishing 2-5 (38 points) for fourth overall—44 total points on the weekend. Then was second-overall but fifth in the standings Herlings with 40 points in the motos plus one single point from tenth in the qualifying moto. It was a strange sight to see when Prado was standing on the lowest step of the podium but given the red plate plaque.
Fast forward a few weeks and at the sixth round, Herlings climbed into the race lead in both motos and claimed the overall win with 1-1 finishes, giving him the record for the most GP overall wins with 102. It was Herlings class-leading third overall win of the season and it broke his tie with Stefan Everts at 101. Surely, he had to be in the points lead now, right? Well, no. GasGas-mounted Prado still leads the championship standings with Herlings six points down, and Fernandez down points equal his race number (70). Read the interview MXLarge.com’s Geoff Meyer provided us on Herlings talking about breaking the record if you missed it earlier this week.
The old saying goes “there are more than one way to skin a cat” and this MXGP championship battle displays this perfectly. Prado is a terrific starter. MXGP-TV play-by-play announcer Paul Malin could use a recording of him saying “Jorge Prado gets the holeshot to start this race” basically for every gate drop. The #61 is constantly out front in the qualifying races and the motos. Herlings’ bread and butter is charging through the field and finishing the motos strong. Herlings was down 21 points to Prado after the third round, but he has cut the deficit to only six now. So let’s compare the top two championship contenders’ styles and their results through the first six rounds.
Note: qualifying race wins are ten points, and a moto win is 25 points.
Through the first six rounds, Prado has 4 qualifying race wins and 56 total points from qualifying (of his 294 total points).
Through the first six rounds, Herlings has 0 qualifying race wins and 39 total points from qualifying (of his 288 total points).
Prado has:
4 qualifying race wins
5 moto 1 wins
0 moto 2 wins
56 qualifying race points
147 moto 1 points
101 moto 2 points
294 total points
1 overall win
5 total overall podiums
Herlings has:
0 qualifying race wins
1 moto 1 wins
3 moto 2 wins
39 qualifying race points
112 moto 1 points
137 moto 2 points
288 total points
3 overall wins
5 total overall podiums
After a weekend off, the MXGP circuit will be back in action next weekend in France. Will Herlings finally grab the points lead from Prado or will Prado continue to lead? Tune into MXGP-TV.com to watch.
Racer X Trivia: Australian Edition (DC)
We’ve been having fun with some old motocross trivia questions here, tying in MXGP questions to make it a little harder. We took last Friday off but the answer to the previous week’s question, which was:
Since 1970, when the Japanese first joined the FIM World Motocross Championships, name the rider whose one GP win was the lone GP win for the bike brand he was riding on. That's it—name the rider and the bike!
The answer was Gilbert DeRoover on his Zundapp, winners of the 1975 Polish 125cc Grand Prix. That was the one and only win for both man and machine. Many guessed Johnny O’Mara and his Mugen, but O’Mara won a couple more GPs in his career. And the mention of the Japanese was a bit of a red herring, though we put it there because in the very early days of MXGP there were surely some boutique European brands that got wins, but the records can be a little suspect.
The winner last week was “Aussieblue” and he contacted me through email, so we will be figuring how to get a prize to him down under. And he volunteered a trivia question for this week that quite honestly stumped me! Here’s this week’s question, courtesy of Aussieblue:
Who was the first Australian to get a point in the FIM World Motocross Championship? Name the rider, class and year.
First person to answer correctly in the comments below is the winner!
Dunlop Proving Grounds (Keefer)
I got a rare chance to tour the top-secret Dunlop Proving Grounds in Huntsville, Alabama, this week and it was quite an eye-opening experience. We walked around the offices, witnessed some car as well as some street bike testing going down on the street course, got to ride the moto/supercross tracks, learned about the intricacies of getting a tire to market as well as had the chance to talk to the R&D off road staff of the Alabama Slamma (Clark Stiles) and Jesse Wentland. We also go to ride on the new Dunlop MX34 tire that will be available soon to the public but can't quite talk about that yet. If you're a moto geek like me, you'll enjoy the virtual tour.
A tribute to the Loretta Lynn Family in Nashville, TN
Head-Scratching Headline/s of the Week
“Fans pass out, throw up as Taylor Swift’s Nashville concert is delayed for hours”—Pagesix.com
"Gary Payton II played a whole possession with vomit in his mouth vs. Lakers, apparently"—SB Nation
"He smelled something strange in his Tibetan hotel room. It was a dead body under his bed"—CNN
“WESTMINSTER DOG SHOW: BUDDY HOLLY WINS BEST IN SHOW Petit Bassets Rule!!!”—TMZ.com
“Steelers RB Najee Harris was vibing in a Mexico wrestling ring”—SB Nation
“Fierce bunny removed from neighborhood after lunging at residents”—CNN
"Thunder Head Coach Lines Up For His First Tee Shot While Playing With Phil Mickelson And Launches It ... Into A Camera 3 Feet Away"—Barstool Sports
Random Notes
For the latest from Canada, check out DMX Frid’EH Update #19.
Thanks for reading Racerhead. See you at the races.