Speaking of Jett, check out the great write-up on Jett Lawrence’s undefeated season in the AMA Pro Motocross Championship by ESPN senior writer Alyssa Roenigk, who penned the excellent feature on the Monster Energy AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch last August.

The SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX) Final will stream LIVE on Peacock and be broadcast LIVE on the USA Network starting at 10 p.m. ET. RDL will stream exclusively on Peacock starting at 4:30 p.m. ET. The SMX Insider Pre-Show will also stream exclusively on Peacock starting at 9:30 p.m. ET. On Sunday, September 24, an encore presentation of the SMX Finals will air on NBC from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m. ET. 

Oh, and the new 2024 Monster Energy Supercross and AMA Pro Motocross schedules were announced during the press conference moments ago, and you can check them out here:

Okay, they are starting to gather next door in the press box for the Kawasaki party, so I need to cut this short. Here’s Matthes…

Wait! Ricky Carmichael and Jeff Stanton just rode out on a couple of Triumph 250 dirt bikes! Hopefully one of our guys down there gets a photo! Look for them tomorrow night for sure.

#'s (Matthes)

Well, we're here. We made it. We're at the hundredth meridian. The final race of the year folks. At the LA Coliseum which is cool and with it all the hype and hoopla of the final SMX race. There was a 60th anniversary party in LA put on by Alpinestars last night, Yamaha and Kawasaki events today and then oh yeah, practice today. It's a lot.

Another thing that's going on with the final race of the year is the national numbers for 2024 are coming into view as well. There are some horrific decisions by the powers-that-be when it comes to what counts and what doesn't for numbers, we have permanent numbers now and other things that don't make this an exact process, but thanks to Dan Truman, we've got some initial thoughts on what's going to happen.

- Zach Osborne will lose 16, Chad Reed will lose 22, Alex Martin will lose 26 and Broc Tickle will lose 20 for 2024.

- It sounds like Chase Sexton will move to a single digit #4 next year when he debuts on the KTM (and Jett and Hunter both say they’re keeping their current #18 and #96).

-New permanent numbers will be Levi Kitchen and Haiden Deegan. We expect Deegan to take #38 and Kitchen has expressed interest in #10 but Justin Brayton is going to hang on to that so we're hearing #47 will be his pick for 2024 but maybe #20?

- Tristan Lane has #99 as of right now but that could change. 

- Tom Vialle and Maximus Vohland are tied with 475 points and one of them (based on the LA SMX results) will have the lowest non-career number out there which is #13 but neither will probably take that so then it's #16, and then the loser of that battle can grab #20—but Tom was always #28 in Europe, so maybe not.

-Fred Noren has been at every single race this year (the only rider to do so) but didn't make every 450SX main event. Fast Freddie's on pace to take #22 followed by Garrett Marchbanks who will inherit the #23 from Sexton. 

Stay tuned for the numbers to drop soon after this last race. 

Lotte Van Drunen's EMX250 Debut

Pro Perspective (Jason Thomas)

 We are down to the last SMX race of 2023 and there couldn’t be more at stake for the frontrunners. With a winner-take-all scenario in both classes, all eyes will be on Hunter Lawrence, Jo Shimoda, and Haiden Deegan in the 250 class while 450 attention will center around Chase Sexton, Jett Lawrence, and Ken Roczen. The press conference today offered a myriad of questions as to how each rider would approach the granddaddy of them all. With millions on the line (1M and 500k per class respectively to the winner), I wondered if anyone of them would be feeling the pressure. That didn’t seem to be the case, though, as most seemed at ease with the situation. The reason, in my opinion, is where we are in the season. We are on race 31 of 2023 and that fact is weighing on both mind and body. If this were January, the tension would be palpable. With so many fighting fatigue and lingering injuries, some of the pressure has subsided accordingly. It will be interesting to see if that narrative changes as the lights go down over downtown Los Angeles tomorrow night. 

Locking in and being present can pay big dividends tomorrow night, regardless of the incoming points situation. For example, Jason Anderson sits in eighth place after two SMX playoff rounds. He is only 16 points out of fourth in the championship and with a podium finish, could easily vault up the leader board. How much does that matter, you ask? By jumping from eighth to fourth in the points, he would earn an extra $100,000. Eighth is $100,000 while fourth jumps all the way to $200,000. That’s a pretty solid reason to dig for motivation. While the race for the championship will be front and center, watch for the battles inside the top ten as the financial swings will be huge.

Yamaha 50th Anniversary And The 2024 YZ250F (Keefer)

Yamaha invited the media out to the LA Coliseum yesterday to walk us through the details of the new 2024 YZ250F that we get to ride next Tuesday! However, what was special was that we got to shoot most of our static shots on the floor of the Coliseum while the track crew were putting the finishing touches on the track. The 2024 YZ250F is almost all new with a new frame, body layout, lots of updates to the engine, as well as a special 50th Anniversary white/purple look! Yamaha is also continuing to celebrate their 50th Anniversary all weekend as we get to ride with some high-profile celebrities at the LA Coliseum on an abbreviated portion of the track. Yes, that's right, celebrities on dirt bikes. On a SX track! Stay tuned for that! In the meantime, hold tight on more info about the 2024 YZ250F and check back next week on racerxonline.com for all the scoop on the new WHITE bLU cRU! 

538 Miles: The Grand Canyon (AJ Pleasanton)

There was no shortage of excitement and drama at the second round of the SuperMotocross World Championship staged at Chicagoland Speedway. While the stars of our sport battled under the lights in hopes of securing their share of the $5.5 million dollar purse, the Supermini World All Star class put it all on the line, aiming to etch their names into the memories of spectators who might one day get in line for their autograph. Sure, these races are intended for the future stars of our sport to acclimate themselves to the atmosphere of racing in front of thousands of people, but let’s make something perfectly clear, these kids are there to do one thing: Win.    

One young racer who stood out amongst the 22-rider field of Super Mini World All-Stars was without a doubt the #316, Canyon Richards. Hailing from Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, this 15-year-old has already secured an impressive 110k followers on Instagram, and that might have something to do with the fact that he’s already won 81 different AMA Championships (and it would be 82 if he didn’t DNF'd the second moto at Loretta Lynn’s earlier this year from a last lap engine problem.) You might think that it’s impossible for a kid Canyon's age to already have that many titles. The explanation is that he's a multi-talented athlete who also races in the woods at GNCC, enduro and hare scrambles. We’ve seen this before in the likes of riders like Aaron Plessinger, but in this day and age, a full commitment to both motocross and enduro is a rarity among top motocross amateurs. 

Richards was ecstatic to be handpicked to race in the All-Stars, but there was a caveat. At 7:30 a.m., the very next morning, Richards was obligated to be on the line at a GNCC race in Beckley, West Virginia, which is exactly 538 miles from Chicagoland.  

“The opportunity to race SMX was too good to pass up.” exclaimed Canyon. “I’m in a really close battle in the GNCC points and all we had to do was finish the race, load up the bike, and drive nine hours.”

Sounds like a rock-solid plan, right? Sadly, sometimes in racing, things don’t always go according to plan. Many of you might remember how Richards' night ended at Chicagoland. While running second place, and despite coming out of the inside rut a little sideways, Richards held it pinned and committed to clearing the finish line catapult. Reminiscent of Vincent Wey earlier in the race, Canyon miscalculated and cased the SX-sized jump, completely bottoming out the suspension on his KTM. Wey saved his finish line case, but Canyon landed in a soft spot, went over the bars and violently smashed himself into the ground. (Ironically, Vincent also crashed out casing a different jump later in the race. Luckily, he’s okay.) Canyon’s crash sent shockwaves through the stadium, and he was immediately attended to by the Alpinestars Medial Unit.   

“I know could have played it safe and hit it from the outside,” explained Richards, “but I knew going inside a good place to save time. I was catching the leader. My best lap was two seconds faster. I wanted to win so bad, I was doing everything I could. I was even jumping triple-triple through the rollers before that right hander. No one else was doing that.”  

This is the point of the story where audiences around the world wondered what became of Canyon Richards after the crash. In the television coverage of the race, he crashed mere seconds after race announcer, Jason Weigandt, vividly painted a picture of the journey the Richards family still had in front of them that night. There wasn’t a replay of the crash, and the cameras never revisited the scene. The viewers were left anxious and in suspense about the status of Canyon's condition. If you paused your TV the next time the race winner Carson Wood came around to the finish line, you would know that Canyon was placed on a stretcher, but that’s about it. 

What followed the crash was nothing short of miraculous. Long story short, despite strong recommendations from the Alpinestars Medical Unit to head to the nearest hospital, Canyon and his family decided to continue on to West Virginia. 

“My (right) leg was smoked, and I couldn’t walk, but I knew I still had to make it to the race,” Canyon told me. “I bareley slept that night I was in so much pain. We got to the track with just enough time to get my gear on and go to the line.” 

Against all odds and without even the ability to even kickstart his bike, Canyon Richards had no choice but to get a push start from his team to pop his engine. This caused him to start the GNCC race in dead last. Despite riding in an immense amount of pain, Richards managed to navigate the 90-minute race in an exceptional display of grit, speed, and skill. He admitted that he wouldn’t have known what to do if he crashed, and he had some close calls, but luckily, he got through the entire GNCC without falling over. When it was all settled, he clinched a podium finish, limping home in third while also cementing his status as a racer with a heart of pure steel. There are two races left in the 2023 GNCC series and Canyon can bring home the YXC1 Supermini title if he can manage his 12-point lead over Ryan Amancio. The next round of the GNCC series, at CJ Raceway in Newburg, WV, is three weekends away. You would think that Canyon would do best to nurse his injury until the next GNCC, but determined as ever, he has his sights set on the Kawasaki Race of Champions at his home track in Englishtown, NJ

“My grandpa is a chiropractor, and he always gets me on a program and straightens me out. I’m sore, but I’m feeling much better already. KROC is two weekends away; I have time. Nothing is broken, so I’ll be good!”  

As the 2023 Mini O's approach, Canyon Richards stands at a crossroads since that will be his final race on a Supermini. He already has full support offers from both the motocross and enduro worlds, and he will eventually have to decide which dream to chase. But one thing is certain: no matter which path he chooses, Canyon Richards has already proven that he has the heart, talent, and resilience to make a lasting mark on the world of motorcycle racing.

The Corrections: Sandy Oaks and Illinois MX (DC)

In last week's Racerhead I made two mistakes that I need to correct here. First, there was an overhead shot from the event program of the 1977 Sandy Oaks 125 National that I assumed was an overhead of the Keithsburg, Illinois track, but it was not. Apparently, that was a mistake from the producer of that event program and the actual photo is of the old national track in Herman, Nebraska. (And I know the photo of Bob Hannah on the cover of program was from the Daytona SX, not anything from Sandy Oaks, which never had another national, before or after.) Thanks to both Ken Welty and Glen Dale in the comments last week for pointing these things out!

The second mistake was a bench-racing last neutral on my own part. I assumed that the '77 Sandy Oaks race was the only AMA Pro Motocross help in Illinois, but I was wrong here too! Turns out there was a 125/250/500 National in 1983 at track right outside of St. Louis, but on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River--East St. Louis. The winners were Jeff Ward (125), Bob Hannah (250) and Broc Glover (500). Here's what the Cycle News coverage looked like 30 years ago when the second-ever national in Illinois ran... (And thanks again to Glen Dale for spotting this and sending me down the Cycle News Archives rabbit hole!)

Ads We Could Not Get Away With Today... (DC)

Hey, Watch It!

Hall of Fame 2023: Pastrana, Dungey, & Langston Talk Careers, Legacy, & Rivarlies

2023 Sturgis Motorcycle Museum Hall of Fame with the 1981 MXdN Team

Racer X contributor Blake Wharton raced a Honda XR200 at Diamond Don’s

Jorge Prado – GASGAS’ First MXGP World Champion!

GoPro: Luke Fauser Is One of the Fastest Amateurs in the Country

GoPro: Carson Brown Ripping a 2018 TC150 at Vurb Classic

Head-Scratching Headline/s of the Week

“Venezuela's Tocoron prison raided: Moment 11,000 cops storm notorious jail to find a ZOO, casino, nightclub, pool and supermarket after the Tren de Aragua criminal gang was allowed to roam free for years”—DailyMail.co.uk 

Random Notes

"Why not Let’s do this! This weekend I will race in the EMX250 with the big boys in Matterly Basin, UK. I want to know where I stand right now, what I need to work on and how many seconds I am short of being able to compete in the middle of the field so I can get started on that"