So this time we had multiple places to watch the race, plus a tour, all the food I wanted and more. Daytona SX... race of the year???

Well, maybe not for Aaron Plessinger and Jason Anderson, who were still racing out there when Lawrence crossed the finish line. That prompted thousands of fans to rush the track and make it to the podium. Starting in 2005, I think, Daytona has allowed fans to watch from the Tarmac. It’s always been a quaint part of Daytona over the year, but this was ridiculous. Someone is going get hurt if they keep doing it. You can't run on the track while bikes are still out there! As usual in this life, the small minority of idiots are going to ruin it for everyone. In talking to Kelleher after the race, he was upset at what happened and was not happy. I don’t know what you can do other than keep the fans back into the stands. There’s not enough security to keep everyone back if they’re going to do start climbing fences. I mean this is thousands of people, it's hard to hold them back if they want to jump. Sucks for sure and that was scary. 

The track was pretty good until the rains came Saturday. And they came twice in pretty good amounts. It was already soft during the build and would’ve been tough with the ruts before the rain, but once they passed through, forget about it. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen more riders universally tell me a track was tough than this past weekend. For the first time since 2005, Dirt Wurx built the track, and you could tell. The jumps were more, regular, “sx like” than maybe ever, or since 2005 anyway. Had the dirt been primo, this would’ve been sweet, but with the ruts and the softness, it made it very tough.

Big crashes from Dylan Ferrandis, Aaron Plessinger, and Dean Wilson in the main event, lots of sketchy moments for the guys and really, only the strong survived on this night.

Usually, Daytona awards the rider who’s able to be creative and think on his feet, as the track changes every lap. Finding the ideal line is tough there, as is nailing all the obstacles. Another way to do well there is to just use brute force and elite fitness. Travis Pastrana absolutely worked everyone there one year because he could outthink the course. Wait! Matthes did you just say Travis Pastrana as a model of the thinking man's racer? I did! He was so creative. In his 125 days he hopped over all of Daytona's weird bumps and holes. He was jumping corners. He won by like five minutes.

Then again, Ricky Carmichael and Eli Tomac used the elite fitness and brute force to dominate there. Jett Lawrence is in the Pastrana category (with creativity) and was a heavy favorite coming in to win. That’s exactly what he did, too. He caught Daytona King Tomac from a ways back in the heat to pull away. In the main he caught and passed both Tomac and Chase Sexton to again pull away and win rather easily. Lawrence now has three wins in eight races and a ten-point lead on Cooper Webb. 

It was quite a statement from the kid, and I think he’s made those typical rookie mistakes that we see, and STILL has a ten-point lead! Yeah, kind of worrisome for the competition I’d say. In talking to Darren Lawrence this week, the mistake we saw in Dallas was something that was a teachable moment for Jett and he probably won’t do that again. So maybe cross that off, cross off the “not tough enough to win at Daytona sentiment,” …cross off the, “rattled by the crowd booing,” and finally, cross off the “he only wins when he gets the holeshot,” stuff.

I think you know where I’m going with this.

Tomac did get second, which was his second runner-up ride in a row. He got Chase Sexton late, and if you take the Aussie kid out, what a race those two had. Eli’s valve cover gasket failed out in the main, which is what led to all that smoke coming from his bike. It wasn't the clutch, but either way, that probably led to some tense moments for Josh Ellingson, his mechanic. Afterward Eli lamented his inability to pull the trigger on the quad in the long rhythm after the mechanics’ area as a reason why he couldn’t win the race, or at least be closer to Lawrence.

I get all that, but you still had to string together the rest of the rhythm, and so just doing the quad, while helpful, didn’t mean you’d grease the rest of the section, you know? Sexton was doing it early and stopped—the track was a beast for these guys. Full props to the big dogs for continuing to send it.

Sexton’s finally riding during the week now after injuring his hand a while back, and he was more Sexton-like this week than we’ve seen in recent races. A few weeks ago, I was told Sexton was completely happy with his bike and hadn’t touched a clicker for a couple weeks. Well, something has changed for sure as Michael Lindsey from Vital MX caught what looks like KYB internals within the WP fork on Sexton’s KTM. It’s a common aftermarket mod for many shops, as a lot of customers weren’t happy with the stock WP air forks, but to see Sexton show up with KYB (style) stuff was rather shocking. It tells me that Sexton is searching for happiness on his bike and now KTM has opened up a spicy meatball.

Justin Barcia, currently trying to dig himself out of a deep, dark hole, made a comment to me about seeing that KTM has tried some “stuff” with Sexton. Malcom Stewart? Yeah, not stoked on his bike. Aaron Plessinger is happy with his bike but if he hits even the smallest slump, he’ll be looking at the KYB inserts with heart emoji eyes. And then KTM will have to either start testing with these guys or just have unhappy riders who blame the bike for their struggles. It's not hard for people around a rider to start whispering If only KTM would give them what they gave Sexton! Insert eye roll here. Trust me, I’ve been there.

Cooper Webb qualified fastest, which is a good sign, but the track changes so much at Daytona you can’t put much stock in that. Plus, heavy rains cancelled the second set of 450 qualifiers. I didn’t realize how good Webb had done at this track over the years, but in both the heat and main, bad starts did him in. He rode well but he can’t do that against this field.

Tom Vialle won his first 250SX and I know that KTM hasn’t always had a lot of factory orange bikes in the class (I mean, technically Hampshire is winning on a KTM) but Vialle’s win is the first in 250SX for an orange bike since Shane McElrath. That is a wild stat! Even crazier is, it’s the first win for the factory Red Bull KTM 250SX since Marvin Musquin! 

Anyway, in the spirit of Marv, who’s now working with Tom Vialle, Vialle was great at The Speedway. He worked his way through frontrunners Haiden Deegan, Seth Hammaker, and Cameron McAdoo to win rather easily. The French guys are creative riders anyway, Vialle is good at MX, and last year he was very fast at Daytona before crashing out. Great ride!

One thing about McAdoo is, yes, he was leading and lost the race, which a dude like him is never happy about. But he did seem okay after the race with his ride. He also won another heat, which makes him three for three in that department to start the year, and he seems to have fewer moments in which he’s “Wackers” from a few years ago. He’s just “Cameron” now. He’s smoothed things out a lot and I think he’s starting to figure things out a bit, as far as making races less boring.

Seth Hammaker rode a good race to round out the podium for Mitch Payton’s Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki team. Seth looked like he wanted some of McAdoo at one point and pulled in close before dropping back by the end. Seth’s underrated I think, and I saw him talking to super-agent Lucas Mirtl at one point. I didn’t know Mirts was his agent. How many 250 riders does Mirts have at this point? Anyone know?

Haiden Deegan got really lucky in practice. He was fine after he cross-rutted off the face of a triple and had to bail off. That could’ve been ugly, for sure, but Deegs escaped it and then gave a funny interview afterward. I have to think that crash affected him the rest of the day, right? He holeshot and was leading and honestly, I figured he was gone but he made a lot of mistakes throughout the main to end up with a fourth. Not too bad considering everything that went into it, right?

Both Deegan and McAdoo might look back at their rides in Detroit as championship saving ones. One dude’s bike was so bent up it was like riding an accordion, while the other one had to ride with his kibbles and bits showing off to the world.

Some other news and notes:

Benny Bloss had his best race of the year on the Beta to get a tenth and seems to be happier with the bike lately. Rough start for the startup team, but they’re rounding into form lately. Benji is on the ground far less than he was and the bike seems to be getting “beta.”

Max Anstie has gone 2-6-8 and has the red plate. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before. I’m sure some stat nerd will come in and tell me that it’s been done before but after three rounds, I doubt there’s ever been a red plate leader with these results. Also, Max has to get better starts, ASAP.

Hunter Lawrence and Dean Wilson both crashed and hurt their shoulders. Both will miss some time, more so Wilson who broke his shoulder blade in three places. Bummer, because it’s Dean’s last year racing and that might be it for him. Hope not. As far as Hunter, he hit a rock or something in a deep rut that kicked him sideways and down he went. The next lap Roczen justtttt about did the exact same thing and Chiz told me he did as well.

Speaking of Roczen, he was spicy out there early and moved to the back of Jett right away after winning the heat (after a crash!). I thought we were going to see something special from the #94 but then he lost the tow of the 18 and was on his way back by the end. Heck, Justin Cooper about got him! In the history of SX, it’s super weird that Jeff Ward and Ken Roczen never managed to win Daytona. At least Kenny’s got some shots left, I think Wardy is probably done. Actually you never know with Wardy. He's probably logging a century ride on a bicycle right now.

Coty Schock is really off to a nice start with the ClubMX guys. He’s been super steady to start the year and is just four points out of the lead after three races! That’s awesome for a dude who was added to the team late, and I’m going to keep pounding the drum that he should head up to Canada this summer for the MX101 guys and race MX1. He’d do awesome I bet.