On Saturday night, Cameron McAdoo navigated the tricky Indianapolis SX track, the three-race need-to-be-consistent Triple Crown format, and the rest of his fast competitors to claim the 250SX overall win. It was the Iowa native’s third career Monster Energy AMA Supercross win but his first in over two years. While he has been waiting for this day to stand on the top step of the podium after a long road back, nothing really changes.
“Honestly, the next 24 hours probably looks very similar to the last three Sundays after the races: I’m going to fly home, do a little bike ride on my bike path, and hang with my dog,” McAdoo said on his Sunday after the win. “And I’m really going to enjoy it, this is really special to me.”
McAdoo will enjoy this moment, but he will remain grounded, not letting the highs get too high. He learned that when the lows got too low. Now he lives in the middle, although he understands the significance of the accomplishment.
“As far as celebrating it, it’s a win,” he said. “They don’t get any easier ever, it seems. And they’re just as special and maybe even more, like how competitive the field is right now. Like I alluded to earlier, Tom [Vialle] is a two-time world champion [in MX2], Haiden [Deegan] is the SMX Champion right now, reigning, in his rookie season. So, I have huge competition, I need to stay locked in, stay focused forward. We have a few weeks off here that we are going to continue to work to improve. We didn’t win all three mains, you know. These guys have been riding really good. I’m really going to enjoy it. It’s special but, yeah, we gotta lock in and move forward.”
The Kawasaki rider has been approaching the races different things year.
“I’m getting older, and just in the last few years have I been a front running Lites guy,” he said. “That changed my expectations, very quickly. Last year, I was expecting to try to win and try to battle Jett [Lawrence] for wins. I had races where I was getting passed for second and ended up getting third. I remember being so mad. Then a few weeks later I got hurt and it was all taken away from me. Lots of time on the couch, a lot of reflecting through last summer. There was so much I had to be grateful for and I didn’t take advantage of that. I realized I’m not going to be able to do this forever and this is a great part of my life. It’s just really cool to be here, whether I win tonight or not, it’s special and I don’t want to take any of it for granted.”
How does this impact his racing? Something he told us pre-race during Friday’s media day stuck out.
“I really do want to get a win, but I think the biggest thing is not focusing on getting a win,” he said Friday. “I just wanna get my best result that I can each Saturday night and what we want I think will come. It will come in time. …I'm just taking it each practice session at a time, honestly, each lap at a time, each turn and just really focusing on my process rather than an end result because as a racer it's really hard, especially myself.”
“A quote that my wife sent me the other day, ‘Be where your feet are,’” he added. “That's something that I'm really trying to live by right now.”
He admitted he does not have all the answers. He is not perfect. The #63 machine was not on top every session, and he’s not whooping all the riders by 30 seconds in the races. But he has learned to take that in stride. This version of McAdoo is a better version of McAdoo than last week, and the week before that, and a year ago, and two years ago when he last won. On track riding but also off track, mentality wise.
Once the gates drop, he has learned the consistency. Do not force it. He grabbed a win in the first race and took second place in the second race behind Haiden Deegan. This set the duo up with 1-2 finishes each, tied going into the finale. In the third race, McAdoo was running third and knew he did not need to pass Pierce Brown for the overall win. The team knew the game plan going into the finale and he stayed focused on nailing his lines and finishing the job at the checkered flag. His 1-2-3 was more than enough for the overall win.
“I was behind Pierce, and I had some available pace, I had no clue where Haiden was, but I knew if Haiden got to the board [into the top five] I had to go,” said McAdoo. “I had to stay locked in, I quit hitting the triples in the rhythm lanes, I started doubling some of the really technical hard ones that were hard to consistently make, but I was still racing it. In the past that’s maybe what cost me off guard before, and caused some injures, to be honest, is not being super locked in. So, I was really trying to focus on staying locked in and racing the track, but, yeah, I was aware of everything that was going on around me.”
It all goes back to his focus on being consistent: “Taking what you can get at the moment.”
Taking pressure off himself come Sunday as well.
“I think I’ve just taken a little bit of the pressure off of myself, as in, I’m the same person whether I have success on Saturday night or not. And that’s really hard,” McAdoo said. “I haven’t gotten it dialed yet, but I’ve just made a big change really quick with my perspective of the sport, my perspective of what it means to me. And it’s helpful to be more settled in my mind and okay with whatever my best can be that night and each weekend and at the end of the championship. This is the best place [position] I’ve been in at round five. Again, I’m just going to keep doing what I can every day and just be present every lap of the track, every time I go to dinner with my wife, everything.”
Great life advice from a 26-year-old. And it is paying off.
The 250SX East Region is next on track at the April 13 Foxborough Supercross and next time he is on track, McAdoo will have the red plates on his Kawasaki KX250. He is more than happy to be in the points lead after five rounds—by far the best position of his career. And he will be taking it session by session, being fully in the moment. How far will this new approach take him?
