After a gnarly crash in the first moto at Hangtown, Jett Lawrence lost the first moto of his 450MX career. This stopped his moto win streak he started at round one in 2023, at 24 wins. That number, 24, means he did match up to previous perfect season runs of Ricky Carmichael and James Stewart, who logged three 24-0 seasons between them.
So where does he stack up in the list of all time moto wins? Further, what are some of the more famous streaks in this sport, spread across multiple seasons and even multiple series? Glad you asked. Here's The List.
Ricky Carmichael
Carmichael won 30 straight 250 National motos that he entered between Spring Creek '01 and Glen Helen '03. (At Kenworthy's '01 Tim Ferry won the second moto, while at Hangtown '03 Kevin Windham won the first moto.) But this one does have a carve-out: Carmichael parked his Kawasaki KX 250 for the Steel City finale in 2001 in order to make a run at breaking Mark Barnett's all-time record of 25 overall wins in the 125 class, where he went 3-1 to take the overall win and the record, which he held until James Stewart came along over the next three years.
Ricky Carmichael (Again)
Windham challenged Carmichael throughout 2003, but from the second moto at Broome-Tioga in 2003 to the first moto at Southwick in 2005, Carmichael won 31-straight motos. He dropped the first moto at Broome to Windham and then the first moto of Southwick '05 to Chad Reed. What is equally impressive is the fact that this streak coincided in part with another incredible streak for the GOAT, which was the fact that from Washougal '03 to Hangtown '06 Carmichael won 27 straight overalls. He also used three different motorcycles to do it: A Honda CR250 in '03, a Honda CRF450 in '04 and a Suzuki RM-Z450 in '05.
James Stewart (Unofficial)
This win streak is unofficial, because Stewart did not win every race held because he missed some due to injury. He did however, go on a streak of winning every race he entered (kind of like Carmichael's 30-moto streak above, which was interrupted when he entered a 125 National and went 3-1). After losing the first moto at the 2002 Spring Creek 125 National to an inspired Chad Reed (inspired by James waving him past at Unadilla and then passing him right back) Stewart rebounded for the second moto victory, then carried that momentum through the last two rounds (Broome-Tioga and Steel City) to win the last five motos of 2002.
He then missed the first four rounds of '03 with a broken collarbone, returned at Budds Creek and promptly unveiled the "Bubba Scrub" and won all 14 motos of the last seven rounds.
To start 2004 James won the first eight motos of the series--at Glen Helen, Hangtown, High Point, Southwick--to add eight more motos wins to that streak. He then got caught up in a pileup coming off the gate at RedBud and DNF'd the moto, the win going to Mike Brown. That season, Stewart won 23 out of 24 motos.
Add it all up and Stewart won 27 motos in a row that he entered on his Kawasaki KX125 from Moto 2 at Spring Creek '02 to Red Bud '04. Coincidentally, the winners of the two motos that bracketed Stewart's streak, Reed and Brown, were both Yamaha of Troy riders at the time aboard YZ250Fs.
James Stewart
James Stewart's 24-0 season was perfectly bound into the 2008 AMA Pro Motocross Championship, where Stewart dominated every moto on his Kawasaki KXF450. His 2007 season ended early with a 1-35 at Washougal, where he tore his ACL, and he was SX-only in 2009 after he switched to the San Manuel Yamaha team. Stewart did return for one race in 2010 but it didn't go well, and then returned to AMA Motocross full time starting in 2012, where he started the season 4-0. Had he not raced that one in '10, he could have stretched his own personal streak of races entered from 24-0 to 28-0 with a four-year break in between!
Jett Lawrence
For Jett Lawrence on the other hand, his 24-0 includes all eleven rounds of 2023 on his Honda HRC 450, and the first two motos of 2024, prior to his big crash at Hangtown.
Stefan Everts
Over in Europe, in 2003 the FIM World Championships were run by DORNA, the people behind MotoGP road racing. They had transition to a one-moto main event format, which gave the supremely fit Stefan Everts an idea: Why not rode both the MX1 (450) class as well as the 125 class (on a YZ250F)? He then swept both classes over the last seven rounds of the series. And for the last race of the year in Ernee, France, Everts decided to enter all three divisions, racing the Open (650cc) class as well. All told, Everts won 15 straight GPs, or motos. He then lost the first race of 2004 to his fellow Belgian Steve Ramon.
And then in 2006, MXGP now back to a traditional two-moto format, Everts reeled off 22 straight moto wins on his way to his tenth and final world title. The riders bracketing the streak were Kevin Strijbos and Josh Coppins.
Jeffrey Herlings
Later, Jeffrey Herlings reeled off 18 straight moto wins at one point in 2014 in the MX2 class but then broke his leg while participating in a charity minicycle race, costing him that world title. And then in 2018 the "fastest man on the planet" won 19 straight MXGP motos to close out the season with the world title.
Jeremy McGrath
Finally, let's remember the 13-race AMA Supercross winning streaks of Jeremy McGrath in 1996 and Ricky Carmichael in 2001. While winning SX main events is different than sweeping both motos of an outdoor national, week after week, for an extended period of time, the historic runs of Jeremy and Ricky were remarkable in their own ways. In '96 McGrath was riding for Team Honda and working on what would be his fourth-straight SX championship with the team. He won the series opener on January 6 at Orlando and then went on a streak that lasted until April 27 at the Trans World Dome in St. Louis, where Kawasaki's Jeff Emig had the stadium race of his life to finally end the streak. McGrath had already clinched the title, but he wanted a perfect 15-0 season and fought hard for it. After the streak ended there was still one more round of the series, set for May 18 at Denver's Mile High Stadium. McGrath dominated, setting the series wins' mark at 14.
It's worth noting that, at the time, the AMA SX and MX schedules overlapped, so there was the outdoor opener at Gainesville, FL, back on March 3 where McGrath went 1-1. And in the two weekends that followed St. Louis there was the Hangtown National and the Glen Helen round. McGrath went 1-1 at those as well. If not for Emig's streak-stopping win at St. Louis, McGrath, who also won the last three MX rounds in 1995 on his way to his one and only AMA Pro Motocross crown, would have been at 21 SX/MX races in a row! To put it another way, McGrath started AMA Supercross in 1996 13-0, and started AMA Motocross that same year 6-0.
In 2001 McGrath found himself under threat from Ricky Carmichael, by now at peak physical conditioning after a year with Aldon Baker as his trainer. McGrath, now on a Yamaha, was working on what every guessed would be an eighth SX title, as he had won the previous three ('98-'00), his only blip being that lost '97 campaign on a Suzuki. McGrath won the Anaheim opener easily enough, but then Carmichael won Round 2 in San Diego, his first "night win" in supercross (he won Daytona the previous year which was run during the day back then). Jeremy responded with yet another Anaheim win... Literally no one on the planet might have guessed that it would be his 72nd and final win ever for the King of Supercross. One week later Carmichael won at Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix, and then he would win out from there--13 straight wins to close out the championship, his first of five SX titles.
Ironically, Carmichael would then go down off the start of the first moto of the outdoor season at Glen Helen and fail to recover for the overall. And at the '02 SX opener RC, now on a Honda, would crash out. In both cases he would recover to win the titles, but his streak did not compare to Jeremy's, at least not with those outdoor wins added in for McGrath. Jeremy McGrath's run through SX/MX at the end of '95 and throughout the first half of '96 is arguably the single most dominant period of winning in AMA SX/MX history.
