Even though the 250 AMA Pro Motocross Championship has already been decided with Haiden Deegan wrapping it up one round early, Levi Kitchen is not mailing it in. Kitchen started the series by setting the fastest qualifying time at round one and then finished second overall. After following that up with a podium the following weekend at Hangtown, he then hit a slump and finished off of the podium the next four rounds.
Kitchen’s season turned around when he went 1-1 at Millville and won his first ever pro national. He's now won three of the last four races overall. Even though his five bad races figured him out of the championship, Kitchen has been riding with a chip on his shoulder. As he said in the post-race press conference:
“Last two weeks have been really good. And yeah, I think it was just nice to have that break for a few weeks for me to reset. And the goal was just to at least be in the conversation. Obviously, Haiden pretty much smoked me, but, you know, going into next year, I want him to know I'm here to play. And SMX, I think SMX will be pretty fun too.”
Four wins in a season will put anyone into the conversation for next year. What was even more impressive about his ride at Budds Creek was that he did it while being under the weather, as he told Steve Matthes after the race:
“If people knew my week was terrible, I didn’t ride at all. Actually, I can’t even believe it's a thing, if you want to believe it's a cold, but I had COVID all week. So, I didn’t ride. So, today, that second moto was the hardest race I have ever done in my life. I was exhausted after moto one, and I got my ass up and I knew if I ripped a holeshot you kinda run off that adrenaline like, ‘I don’t want to get beat’ obviously. So, I fricking ripped a mean start, and I got six laps to go on the pit board and I told myself, “I am going to try to break Chance [Hymas], if I don’t break him, good for him, he is going to win this race.” But I tried, and I kind of got a little bit of a gap at the end and I was like, ‘Alright, I got it.’”
During the first moto about three quarters of the way through is when the exhaustion kicked in for Kitchen, and his lap times started to show it. Mitch Payton and his team was able to give him some interesting words of encouragement though, and miraculously he was able to rebound.
“It was pretty tough that first moto. Once you lose pace, you don’t realize how much you are really losing and then I looked at times, I was running 2:04s and then I did a 2:09 and then I was done. I came back and Mitch was like, ‘You have more in you, go until you are ready to fall off the dirt bike.’ And then with like five laps to go they wrote on the pit board ‘Don’t be a ____’ so I was like, ‘Oh no.’”
Kitchen, who also got his first supercross win this year at Anaheim 2, admits motocross is a completely different ballgame.
“I will say now that I have done both, outdoors is a pain in the ass compared to supercross. Supercross, still it's scary but man putting two motos together when it's hot and it's brutal. Outdoors, I love it, but I hate it at the same time.”
Motocross is brutal, but that’s what makes victory taste even more sweet. And now that Kitchen has tasted it, he wants to keep on winning.
“I’m stoked for next weekend and I want to win that thing so bad. I mean the fact that I won today, my best result here at Budds Creek I think is 14th so this in years past has been my absolute worst track hands down. And I was so pumped the way I rode today on this track. I really like Ironman, my starts are good right now, I want to rip a couple of starts and throw down there.”
With only one more round before the start of SMX, winning four out of the last five races would certainly be a statement. Let’s see if Kitchen can keep this ball rolling at Ironman and make it a three-peat.
