Welcome to the Danger Zone? Indeed. Haiden Deegan is putting a hurt on this year’s 250 AMA Pro Motocross Championship, turning what might have been a closely-matched fight into a one-man walkaway, to the tune of 42-point lead, overall wins in four of five rounds, and moto scores that read like this: 1-1-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2.
While Deegan didn’t win the overall last time out at High Point Raceway, it was arguably his best race of the year because he came from way back in both motos to win one moto and finish second in the other by less than one second. The only test left was to prove he can win at Southwick, where he went 4-10 last year.
“Definitely,” said Deegan. “I had to prove a point when I came here, after last year kind of the narrative was I couldn’t ride a sand track, so I had to come here and show everyone that I could. And it was a big motivator, I felt like if I could win at this track that proved I’m pretty much unbeatable, so I had to put out a good race here.”
He did. Deegan was the fastest qualifier of all the seeded A group riders (B session is almost always fastest at Southwick, Deegan ended up second overall behind Frenchman Tom Guyon). He ran away with moto one. In moto two, he started behind his main rivals, but the race was red flagged and restarted. Deegan gated better the second time, behind only Levi Kitchen, and then he pulled the scrub/save of death to get into the lead immediately.
The scrub heard round the world...
But Tom Vialle was ready to battle.
“It's a track I kind of liked since last year,” said Vialle, who won last year’s Southwick National for his first U.S. win. “First moto I struggled a little bit to pass Chance [Hymas], I was like behind him for 15 minutes and once I got to second behind Haiden there was a big gap. I finished second so that was okay for the first moto.”
Southwick - 250
June 29, 2024| Rider | Hometown | Motos | Bike | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Haiden Deegan | Temecula, CA  | 1 - 2 | Yamaha YZ250F |
| 2 |  Tom Vialle | Avignon, France  | 2 - 3 | KTM 250 SX-F |
| 3 |  Jo Shimoda | Suzuka, Japan  | 9 - 1 | Honda CRF250R |
For moto two, Vialle wanted to attack Deegan early, and he moved past Kitchen and then went to work on Deegan. Then Deegan crashed over a berm and the two-time MX2 World Champion found himself in the lead. Jo Shimoda rallied up to second and threw down some strong laps, but it looked like Vialle’s race to win, until he lost it with lapped traffic.
“Second moto I lost a lot,” said Vialle. “I was pretty comfortable in front. I almost hit one lapper and I couldn’t see from the sand in my goggles for a little bit. I almost had to like stop to pull the tear-off out, and I lost three or four seconds that one lap and they caught me super quick.”
Now it was on.
“I saw that second moto, Tom dropped maybe a bike length. And I just smelled blood,” said Deegan.
He was asked about his furious charges in the final moments.
“That last five minutes I get another spur of energy somehow, I don’t know if it’s just how I raised, doing motos, working hard, and especially growing up [eating] healthy too, I think that helps,” Deegan said. “I don’t know, once I saw that, it was just balls to the wall, send it to the end. It got real close, real tight at the end. Jo was sending it, we almost came together, then Tom ended up going down, and then, yeah, I just rode it in for second.”
“I was pretty good in second moto I was leading most of the moto then I got stuck behind some lappers with a few laps to go and Jo and Haiden caught me really quick,” said Vialle. “I really wanted to pass Jo again and obviously fight for the win. I crashed in the last lap. I gave everything. The last three laps we all pushed really hard, and it was a good race.”
Vialle is the master of never getting too high or too low with his results, so while blowing a five-second lead might have been a crusher for some, he just moves on, excited for another chance next weekend.
“Yeah, I was pretty happy,” he said. “The last race, High Point, it was pretty bad for me, so it’s nice to be back on the podium and in both motos be back in the rhythm. We’ll fight again next weekend at RedBud.”
The competition will keep fighting, but Deegan has put his stamp on all the proceedings. How much further can he go?
