A rough few weeks for Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki left the team with three riders on the sidelines for 250SX West—Levi Kitchen, Garrett Marchbanks, and Ty Masterpool—and a rookie getting the call to race pro Monster Energy AMA Supercross for the first time. Drew Adams was supposed to start his 2025 season racing SMX Next (formerly SX Futures) at Glendale, Arizona, but instead became the fill-in for the 250 squad at Anaheim 2. This ends Adams' amateur career, as once he made the night show he was no longer eligible to race SMX Next.
Is he ready to race pro? Well, he finished a respectable eighth. Steve Matthes found the friendly 16-year-old Tennessee native after the race.
Racer X: Mitch had no damned riders but he didn’t tell you until Friday that you were in?
Drew Adams: Well, they just wanted me to get some time on the bike and wait until Glendale, but I was ready on the bike within 10 minutes when I rode it. I did a lot of begging over the last two days! It all worked out. I had fun and I learned a lot.
How different was the bike?
It wasn’t too different. The bike I practice on is pretty fast, this just had a few other tweaks in the engine parts and the transmission is different. It was definitely super fast! It was definitely fast but I kinda expected it a little bit.
How were the nerves? You’ve done Futures and that but this is different?
Yeah, all day I was like, “I got this.” No nerves. But as soon as the 30 second board went up I was like “Holy crap! This is happening right now!" My stomach just fell! I was like, “Man I am nervous!” As soon as the gate dropped the adrenaline took over and I was okay. It’s good. I didn’t really have any nerves until then. I’d say I’m happy. The rain was definitely a part of the main event, it got so slippery out there.
I saw you were in sixth then you finished eighth. What happened there?
I got a little pumped up. About 10 minutes in I started to lock up a bit. [Michael] Mosiman got me on the last lap, and I think Shimoda got me maybe half way. I tried to lock in with Shimoda but he had a really good pace. Obviously, it was my first race and I think the fitness will get better every weekend. Next weekend I’ll have 13 minutes and the next weekend I’ll have the whole moto. Everything was solid today, I’m not going to be mad about my finish.
And you met an F1 driver?
Yeah, I met Liam Lawson. That was probably the best part of my day. I got a picture with him!
