Main image by Brown Dog Wilson
Welcome to Racerhead. Let's start with the positives. Rockstar Energy Husqvarna's Malcolm Stewart is one of the most respected and well-liked riders out on the track in Monster Energy AMA Supercross. The little brother of one of the sport's all-time greats, Malcolm has always been in James' shadow, even now, many years past James' last professional race. Malcolm is a very good racer in his own right, but he was just never able to put it all together in a 450SX main event. Until now. His Tampa win in front of a hometown crowd that included plenty of family and friends was the feel-good story of the SMX season so far, and having James in the booth helping cover the historic moment made for excellent TV. They are now the first brothers ever to both have won a premier class AMA Supercross, something I think many thought the window had closed on, and that the Lawrence family would be the ones to set this mark. Instead, it's the House of Stewart that will forever be remembered as the first to achieve this familial success. Well done, Malcolm—I was cheering out loud for you on the couch at home. It reminded me of the 2018 Daytona SX when everything finally came together for Justin Brayton, and I imagine Malcolm got a pat on the pack from everyone in the race, just like JB did.
And for the second week in a row, we had another British winner in 250SX, this time the athlete—Max Anstie—and not the motorcycle, Triumph. I will admit, Anstie was not one of my podium favorites when the 250SX East Division took off on Saturday night, but his performance was easily the best I've ever seen him ride in supercross, and now I would not be surprised to see him do it again in Detroit. Max has always been fun to watch and a pleasure to talk to, and he's winning races still at age 31! Hard to believe that was his first 250SX with Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing since May 2010, when both Max and Star were at a much different point in their respective development.
Add it all up and I believe the combined ages of the 32 (Stewart) and 31 and we have what must be the oldest set of winners at the same supercross round in the history of the two classes, which goes back to 1985.
![Max Anstie]()
Max Anstie Align Media ![Malcolm Stewart]()
Malcolm Stewart Align Media
Now the negatives, and there were several. First, there was the strange misstep of Eli Tomac at the very end of timed qualifying that looked very much like what happened to him two years ago in Denver when he tore that Achilles tendon. He again did not crash, but rather rode off the side of the track and ended up leaning against the stadium wall as everyone held their breath, hoping this wasn't another Achilles. It wasn't, and he was able to race and qualify—barely. Two days, the news from Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing was bad, as Eli himself explained:
“Unfortunately, this was more than an ankle sprain and a bruised calf. After two days of pain not improving, I got additional scans on my leg, and I do have a broken Fibula. This is such a bummer as I’ve never felt better on the motorcycle in Supercross and getting a win at San Diego was great. I don’t have an exact timeframe of recovery at this time but will be working to come back as soon as possible.”
For the second time in three rounds, a title contender was out—and without even crashing! Defending SX and SMX Champion Jett Lawrence didn't crash either when he tore his ACL in Glendale.
Next came the awful crash of Hunter Lawrence that saw him come down on the side of a jump, on top of a Tuff Block, and he banged himself off the ground. Just-like-that, his night and his supercross season were over, as he joined his brother on the sideline with a should injury that requires surgery.
Next came the 250SX main event and what looked like Pierce Brown's first-ever 250SX win, starting this season the same way he ended up the SMX World Championship Playoffs last year with a win in Las Vegas. But then Brown was charging down the right side of the whoops section, started bouncing around and clipped a Tuff Block as the bars were jerking out of his hands. He hit hard, causing a red flag. Unfortunately, his SX season may be done too as he fractured his T5 vertebrae. It was a shame because this was Brown's first race with Star Yamaha, and he was out front.
Speaking of Star, they were 1-2-3 at the moment of Pierce's crash, and as Anstie and young Daxton Bennick lined up together on the restart, it really was just like a day of Star riders hitting the track together at the Goat Farm, as Max and Bennick rode away for a 1-2 win... And then in the middle of this week we get the news that Bennick crashed at The Farm and will now sit out Detroit. WTH?
There were other close calls, crashes that looked downright scary: Tom Vialle in practice hit the deck hard in the whoops, and then series points leader Chase Sexton crashed in those same whoops and gave up the lead to Stewart. And Ken Roczen, who has been having an excellent start to 2025, ended up colliding with privateers Jeremy Hand and Tristan Lane as he lapped them late in the race and he was dicing with Cooper Webb. Kenny was uninjured, but the impact left him with a bent sprocket, a thrown chain, and a DNF. Needless to say, he was furious, and so was his team manager Larry Brooks, as you will read further down.
That's a lot of carnage for one night in Tampa. We now have two of the perceived title contenders in Jett and Eli out, joined by Hunter, and of course Jorge Prado is already out too. Roczen lost a boatload of points. Pierce Brown will be on the sidelines for the foreseeable future. After such a good first four rounds of 2025, the happenings around Tampa put a damper on things. (And now just here, as news also came out that Jeffrey Herlings will miss the upcoming FIM Motocross World Championship MXGP of Argentina opener as he deals with his own ACL recovery.) The wins for Malcolm and Max were positive developments, but pretty much everything else was unfortunate. Here's hoping for a much-less-chaotic Detroit tomorrow afternoon—and don't forget that Detroit starts early, Race Day Live at 9:30 a.m. Eastern in the morning and the actual event starts at 3 p.m. Eastern in the afternoon.
- Supercross
- Race Day Live (Qualifying)LiveFebruary 15 - 2:30 PM UTC
- Night ShowLiveFebruary 15 - 8:00 PM UTC
- Night Show (Sunday Encore)February 16 - 7:00 PM UTC
![Max Anstie's YZ250F at press day for the Detroit SX.]()
Max Anstie's YZ250F at press day for the Detroit SX. Mitch Kendra ![Max Anstie]()
Max Anstie Mitch Kendra ![Max Anstie]()
Max Anstie Mitch Kendra
Pro Perspective (Jason Thomas)
For the 250 East Division, Tampa felt like Anaheim 1. The deepest 250 field we have seen surely had riders nervous and uncertain about where they would stack up. It shouldn’t be surprising that the results were wild and wacky in response. Anaheim 1 is best to just be observed and tracked instead of using for season long predictions. I feel that Tampa may give us that sort of situation moving forward for the 250s, too. Levi Kitchen, Tom Vialle, and RJ Hampshire are serious championship contenders (two were champs last year and Kitchen was runner up) and yet they were almost invisible as far as impact in the 250 main event. I simply can’t imagine that will continue to be a thing in this class. Meanwhile, Daxton Bennick had his best race in a year and Cameron McAdoo somehow landed a podium on one leg. Wild. Wacky. That was Tampa.
I believe Detroit will provide many more answers than Tampa did. Will it be the end all guide for 2025? That’s unlikely but I think we can start to understand what we should expect much more than what a crazy night SW Florida gave us. So, for everyone claiming victory or defeat in this 250 East Division, let’s take a deep breath and collect more information. Everything that Tampa gave us could be flipped on its head tomorrow night in Detroit.
Ducati Preview (DC)
The Ducati Corse Off-Road program is picking up steam, both here in the U.S. and over in Europe. Switzerland's Jeremy Seewer, the fourth-ranked FIM Motocross World Championship (MXGP) rider in 2024, has joined Italian rider Mattia Guadagnini for the FIM World Motocross Championship. They both raced the Mantova International last weekend, which unfortunately was pretty much a mudder. Seewer finished fourth and Guadagnini sixth. Ducati also released photos of what their Desmo450 MX bikes will look like when they open the season in Argentina in two weeks.
As far as how the Ducati project is coming along here in America, I asked Paolo Ciabetti, General Manager of Ducati Corse Off-Road, how things were coming along with Troy Lee for their U.S. racing team.
HELPING HONDA (Matthes)
With the news that Hunter Lawrence is out for SX, joining his brother Jett on the sidelines. Now we wait to see if the team is going to fill a spot on the 450 side for SX. We called team manager Lars Lindstrom on the PulpMX Show Monday night and proposed Dean Wilson for the spot. Wilson has been back in the UK racing some AX's and has every intention of doing some AMA races this year, his last on the circuit. What better way to win over the fans than letting Deano ride a factory bike for the second half of the series, right? Lindstrom seemed open to that fact, after all otherwise you'd have to grab someone from an existing team and that always has loopholes in it.
What else?
I know that Shane McElrath doesn't have a secure deal with Quad Lock Honda for the rest of SX so an easy solution would be to grab Joey Savatgy, coming off a season best seventh in Tampa, and put him on the factory team and give McElrath that spot alongside 250SX rider Carson Mumford. That's easy to do also and Yarrive at Quad Lock and Honda are all partners in this stuff so I can't imagine he would protest too much. Or grab McElrath.
And then there's Dylan Ferrandis from Phoenix Racing Honda who would love a shot at it but as Phoenix Honda's one and only "main" guy, might there be sponsorship issues with that?
Or Honda could decide to not put anyone on the 450 and ride this out with 250 riders Chance Hymas and Joe Shimoda but I don't think that will happen. They're gonna put someone on it if, I had to guess, so let the games begin!
GNCC Season Kickoff (Mitch Kendra)
The 2025 Progressive Grand National Cross Country (GNCC) Racing kicks off this weekend with the Big Buck GNCC. They are expecting to get some rain so it will be an interesting start to the championship! Johnny Girroir, the 2024 Grand National Champion, Steward Baylor Jr., and now un-retired eight-time GNCC Champion Kailub Russell joined Jason Weigandt and Johnny Gallagher in a massive season preview in the middle of this week—you can check out the video below.
The Big Buck GNCC will have both Saturday’s pro ATVs (1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST) and Sunday’s pro bikes (1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST) broadcasted live by the RacerTV crew.
Florida Boys (DC)
From Scott Taylor:
Over 20 years ago we took this picture at the Stewart Compound. Last night these Florida boys were all in Tampa for a special night but in different capacities-
From Left to Right:
No. 4: Trent Taylor played his third year of professional baseball in 2024 but was in the stands as a fan for the 2025 Tampa Supercross.
No. 259: After a legendary career on the motorcycle James Stewart Jr. was in the broadcast booth calling his brother Malcolm’s first premier class win in the Monster Energy Supercross series.
No.271: Malcolm Stewart won his first ever Premier class main event at the Tampa Supercross.
No.132: Kyle Chisholm participated in opening ceremonies at the 2025 Tampa Supercross in celebration of his twentieth and final season of professional racing.
#motorcycles #brotherhood #athletes#floridaboys
FLY RACING LIVE SHOWS (Matthes)
We've got tickets on sale for Fly Racing Live Podcast shows at Indy and Vegas, Seattle coming soon. Check out the link to buy tickets.
LCQ CHALLENGE (Matthes)
We're doing it again, 22 privateers to an LCQ Challenge race in Denver on Friday before the 16th round and you can help them buy getting a raffle ticket and having a chance at a 2025 Yamaha YZ450F or one of some other cool prizes. Click HERE to get a ticket!
Pro Circuit Blues (DC)
It's been a rough start to 2025 for the Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki team. They had high hopes going into the season, but almost immediately hit a roadblock when 250SX West Division contender Levi Kitchen had to scratch at Anaheim with what we now know was pneumonia. That led the team to pull Ty Masterpool out of the East for round two of 250SX West, only to see him get hurt before the next round. Meanwhile, Garrett Marchbanks had to miss Anaheim 2 with an injury, so the team called in the rookie Drew Adams, who was planning on riding in the SMX Next amateur program throughout the supercross series. He finished eighth, only to also get hurt when he broke his collarbone during qualifying for the Glendale SX, his second pro SX race.
When 250SX East opened last weekend, the team had Levi Kitchen back, and many pegged him as one of the favorites. But he didn't have the best opening night in Tampa and finished ninth after a crash in the sand section. Kitchen's two teammates, Cameron McAdoo and Seth Hammaker, both had better nights, finishing third and fourth, respectively, in the main. Ironically, McAdoo got the team its first podium of the year while riding with a torn ACL.
Pro Circuit Kawasaki is not alone in having a rough start to 2025. While Malcolm Stewart gave Rockstar Energy Husqvarna a huge 450SX win last weekend, 250 rider RJ Hampshire had a rough start to his 250SX East title hopes. After having to vacate his #1 plate out west because he was still recovering from injury, Hampshire only managed an 18th place finish after getting caught up on one of those funky corner barriers. The bright side? Last year's 250SX East Champion, Red Bull KTM's Tom Vialle, finished 18th in last year's opener, which was in Detroit.
Lappers: Hot Take (DC)
Three-time FIM Motocross World Champion and '99 AMA 250 Pro Motocross Champion Greg Albertyn had a hot take on the lappers at the Tampa SX:
“Will the #AMA @ama_racingplease start fining these lappers at least $5000 per occurrence when they mess with the leaders coming by. You see it so often and the consequences are massive. Forget about the championship points or the money, but the risk these riders are in when these clowns don’t get out of the way is astronomical. Some guys when they are lapped are completely considerate and move out of the way and don’t interfere, but others are have no situational awareness, but more likely no respect for the leaders. @jeremy_hand56 could well have ended @kenroczen94 championship hopes last night, by being stupid. Then @vincefriese almost cost Tomac the race in San Diego by not getting out of the way and being disrespectful. These guys need to start feeling the pain for their stupid behavior. #finethem”
Larry Brooks, Twisted Tea/H.E.P. Motorsports/Suzuki team manager, also had a hot take:
“It would have been a great night. We kind of struggled during the day, even struggled in the heat races, then we kind of got it together in the main event. But a lapped rider jumped on top of Ken Roczen and bent the rear sprocket. The AMA does not do anything to penalize the riders that are being lapped; they only give them a blue flag and let them kind of dictate what they want to do. And it hasn’t worked. It’s been this way for years and years and now we just got 18 points taken away from us because of a lapped rider and a DNF. It’s super disappointing. Ken Roczen was riding really good, and for him to have a rider jump on him – it’s just really disappointing. It is the sanctioning body’s job to take care of the lapped riders and all the officiating, and it just seems like we have not been taken care of. They are here to keep the riders safe, and I don’t think that happened tonight. It put our rider in danger, that’s for sure. But we’ll come back next week stronger and better. We still have a lot of racing left.”
This Week's Win Ads (DC)
It's been a minute since Malcolm Stewart won a race. April 30, 2016, to be exact. So, the win ads this week and the front page of Cycle News Magazine were long overdue for open of the most popular and respected riders in the paddock. Also cool to see Jeremy McGrath get some love for his victory at King of the Hammers behind the wheel of a Kawasaki Teryx KRX 1000.
People's Champ: The Impact of Ken Block (Langers)
Last night was the grand opening at Los Angeles' Petersen Automotive Museum of a new exhibit called People's Champ: The Impact of Ken Block. It celebrates the motorsports' icon's career as a pioneer in automotive content, as well as his impact on rally car racing. Block, who passed away in January 2023 in a snowmobile accident, was a longtime sponsor of professional and amateur SMX riders through the company he co-founded, DC Shoes. The exhibit honors Ken’s legacy through a display of his most iconic vehicles and memorabilia like racing suits, helmets, wheels, DC Shoes, and Hoonigan merchandise from key moments in his career.
According to Peterson website, "A motorsports icon and pioneer of automotive content in the age of online media, rally driver and DC Shoes co-founder Ken Block utilized his marketing acumen, driving expertise, and automotive enthusiasm to create the enormously popular Gymkhana video series and Hoonigan, an automotive lifestyle brand and production company that has captivated audiences for over a decade."
His family, friends and his Hoonigan team were at the grand opening of the exhibit last night. For more information check out the Peterson Automotive Museum's website.
Detroit 2024 (Mitch Kendra)
This week's Race Rewind takes us back to the 2024 Detroit SX at Ford Field last February...
(1/2) Rewind to 2024 Detroit #Supercross (round 1 for 250SX East):
— Mitch Kendra (@mitch_kendra) February 14, 2025
-McAdoo and Forkner split heat race wins for Pro Circuit
-Ferry wins LCQ in Triumph debut
-Massive pileup off main event start
-Forkner takes 13th career 250SX win pic.twitter.com/Nz9nXkyxi1
Rewind to 2024 Detroit #Supercross (round 5 for 450SX):
— Mitch Kendra (@mitch_kendra) February 14, 2025
-J. Lawrence won 28-lap main event (second win of season)
-Sexton & Roczen round out podium
-Tomac tenth
-Plessinger (6th) entered day P1 in points
-Sexton left P1 in points, J. Lawrence P2
Results:https://t.co/oQzz8GmL54 pic.twitter.com/CcggVUzarr
Triumph TF450-RC (Keefer)
It was nice to get the all-new Triumph TF 450-RC Edition back home in Southern California. We took the British 450 to Glen Helen Raceway to see if the bike felt similar to what we felt in Georgia last year. Sometimes we will go to a press launch then bring the bikes back home and they feel different on less attractive soil (like So. Cal tracks can). I have also spun a crap ton of laps at Glen Helen, so I got to feel what the Triumph TF 450-RC Edition's strengths and weaknesses were compared to other brands. Check out the video here.
WHY I WENT EAST COAST | Levi Kitchen YES CHEF
Shane McElrath got himself back on the right track at Tampa:
New Kids On The Block | Episode 1 | Tampa Supercross w/ DBDRacing
Head-Scratching Headline/s of the Week
"French Rapper Rilės Is Running for 24 Hours in Front of Saws" - Complex
“Sex, drugs and underlying health issues: The crippling cost of insuring old rockers”—Telegraph
"AI chatbots unable to accurately summarise news, BBC finds"—BBC
"Noel Gallagher Calls Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime Show Performance ‘Absolute Nonsense’"—Billboard
"How Drake lost worse than the Chiefs at the Super Bowl"—CNN
“Mafia godfathers lament ‘miserable’ calibre of new recruits”—Telegraph
Random Notes
Looking for something fun with moto folks on a Thursday night in Florida? On Track is having a pizza party/fundraiser on Thursday, February 27, at Giuseppe's Pizza in Port Orange, Florida. Get your tickets here.
Our friends at Exit Tours MC will host 15 Dual Sport & Adventure rides in the Rocky Mountains and the West this summer and autumn. Visit their site for more info.
Thanks for reading Racerhead. See you at the races!
