With victories in the AMA Pro Motocross Championship and the SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX) last year, plus the SMX Championship, it seems strange to hear Haiden Deegan is yet to win a supercross race, but here were stood until Arlington, when he snagged a victory. There's much to talk about after this one, including Austin Forkner's ugly crash while leading, and Deegan's own bounce back from an off-season wrist injury and a brutal first-turn crash at the 250SX East Region opener in Detroit.
Kellen Brauer talked to Haiden in the post-race media scrum to get some thoughts:
Racer X: Haiden Deegan, first supercross win. We know coming in you maybe weren't 100 percent before it. So, is it surprising that it worked out this well, this quickly?
Haiden Deegan: Yeah, definitely to be up to speed and have the endurance to win a supercross. I mean, obviously you hate to see what happens to Austin [Forkner]. It's sad, man. You wanted to have a good battle for this season and it just shows you how dangerous this sport is. It’s ruthless.
Run me through the main event a little bit because Austin kind of got away, you started reeling him back in. It looked like he made a run, then he started getting away a little bit. Just take me through that battle a little bit.
Yeah, I could see and I looked on the clock about 10 minutes ago, we were dropping third and I seen Austin slowly start making mistakes and in my head, mentally, I was like, okay, he might be getting a little fatigued, he might get a little tired. So I was like, I'm just gonna stay where I'm at. I'm gonna do my perfect laps and I saw five minutes to go on the clock, I think, roughly five minutes, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna put a charge on. Like, now I got a fight, we're almost to the end of this race. And unfortunately he had the incident and, yeah, I, I mean, I was ready to get, I was ready to get to a battle. I was gonna have some fun out there. My, my fitness is surprisingly, honestly, pretty good. I think it's honestly the how healthy I eat. You know, my, my parents have raised me eating really healthy, and obviously and freaking me and my boys go do a little 10 mile runs. We got that endurance in us. But it was good to get my first win and, now we just got to do, it'd be nice to have a straight up battle towards the end. I'm not sure what is wrong with Austin. Exactly. But we'll see soon. But, yeah, I'm down to have some battles at the end.
Deegan also spoke in the post-race press conference. Here is what he had to say.
I wanna talk about that kind of the tribute to your pops and what he did and how it feels to follow in his footsteps and now get your own supercross win?
Deegan: Getting the dub. I was behind Austin for a while and obviously you hate to see that. It's not anything you want to see in this sport and it's a dangerous sport, man. Stuff like that happens often, but obviously, yeah, [hope] he heals up. That was not good. But yeah, man, first win, that was exciting and I was like, “I don't know, I've won and I was like, I mean, this is a little jump, why not ghost ride it?” I was honestly a little scared like, if it was a triple, like would I get stuck to the bike and like, fly through the air or something? Weird. So, I mean, it's a little jump. I'm [gonna] ghost ride this thing.
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After Austin's crash, you all of a sudden find yourself with a seven second lead cruising towards your first main event win. Is it hard to maintain the focus? Are you feeling nerves in that moment?
Yeah, I mean, the nerves are always there the whole race, you know, it was just trying for me just to hit my marks every lap, like not make one mistake. And that's honestly, which I think this 250 class lacks is consistency and not, and these guys make a lot of mistakes. So if you can be the guy to not make these mistakes, that puts you up front, right? I mean, Jet Lawrence came in, won, went to the 450 class quick. He didn't spend a lot of time here. He was consistent and upfront and not making a dumb move. You just wanna be consistent, I'd say. And the nerves were there, you know, first win, but I've led some races so it wasn't too bad.
Does this put, should this put an end to any of the questions about your wrist, this performance tonight?
I mean, I'd say so. I mean, I'm on a little bit of the same road as [Cameron] McAdoo. I didn't get much of a preseason, I'll be honest, but it's in the mind. You gotta have the mental strength to push through those things. But yeah, I'd say we put an end to that thing and we're pushing forward from there
| Position | Rider | Hometown | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Tom Vialle | Avignon, France  | 172 |
| 2 |  Haiden Deegan | Temecula, CA  | 168 |
| 3 |  Coty Schock | Dover, DE | 132 |
| 4 |  Pierce Brown | Sandy, UT | 131 |
| 5 |  Max Anstie | Newbury, England, United Kingdom  | 125 |
How important was it to have this win after Detroit?
Yeah, definitely Detroit obviously went a little south on the start. But yeah, it was my fault. I didn't get a good start. It bit me and so I went and worked on starts and nearly holeshot the main, came out second. So I'd say we got the starts pretty dialed. Not 100 percent hole shot, but we came around that first turn almost first. So we got a little more work to do, but I mean, starts were dialed, although you could say it was a little gifted with Austin crashing, which again, you don't want to see that. But I mean, honestly, I was getting ready, I had that energy. I mean, I was ready to cook up a nasty battle at the end. I was like, I was waiting, waiting and I ended up with the better end of the stick, fortunately in that race. So we ended up getting the dub.
To be able to ghost ride and pay honor and reference to your father. What did that mean for you in the moment?
I mean, yeah, I was like, I gotta do it. I mean, I've been telling a lot of people I'm gonna ghost ride it eventually. I've kind of been pushing it out. I now look back at it and I was like, I should have done it at LA Coliseum. It would have been more historic. I just didn't know I won though until Duff came up to me [mechanic, Brent Duffe, to say he had won SMX title]. So, I'm gonna blame that one on Duff!
We've seen your progress for your rookie year last year. Did you expect this all to come so quickly? Like, I think, two years ago at this point, what you're prepping to race to spring nationals in the B class. Walk us through how quickly things have happened for you and how you've been able to make such quick gains.
Yeah, definitely. It's all part of the plan, man. My dad has set me on a great path and we've worked together really hard on consistency, and mental. A lot of it's mental, grit and I was raised like that. I was raised to have a lot of grit, no quit and not take any crap. So that's just kind of what's built in me and I felt like that's helped a lot with my upbringing in the rookie season. So, obviously had a nice consistent rookie season, which that was honestly best case scenario for me. I was able to build a lot and honestly bring it into the supercross season even though we had a little hiccup before the season. We had another thing thrown at us, too, with a new bike. So that's kind of building that back up too. Just started on that for preseason and then not getting much time on it. So, yeah, continuously working on suspension, working on the bike, getting it better with the team and it's progressing good.
You mentioned your dad and obviously the path that he kind of planned out for you. Just talk about your relationship with him. You know, sometimes when guys turn pro, the relationship with their family gets a little bit bumpy, but obviously he's been a huge support, your whole family has been, but your dad's been right there.
Yeah, definitely. I think the part where some guys go wrong is thinking they're better than their dad. And you gotta understand that he's your dad, you gotta listen to him and he knows. He's been through it, especially my dad. I'll tell you he's been through it. So, he definitely has good guidance for me. And, I mean, sometimes you have like different thoughts or whatever, but in the end you ended up agreeing with him. He's usually, right. So it's just you gotta get along with your dad in this sport and you'll pursue pretty far.
I guess you're a big proponent of mental strength and you really pride yourself on the mental side of this game. You basically crash out of the first race. Essentially. We've not seen many dudes win a championship [after that], it can be done, but not many guys have done it. So, what process are you going through to try and eliminate that? And then on a night like this, you win the main and just solidify. Like I'm doing every bit of mental work I'm doing is going right.
Sometimes in your head you're like, oh dude, maybe this championship is over and then I walk out my door and look at my goals and I'm like, “No, it ain't, you know, we gotta get back to work and it's only the first round.” There's I got plenty of time and like, dude, after this round, I'm seven points behind the lead. Like that's if I would have got that at the first round, I would have been happy with it to have it at the second round. Seven points behind the red plate, that's nice. I'm, I'm happy with that. We can build from that. But yeah, I have a dream and I'm chasing it and I'm trying to get there quick.
