Red Bull KTM’s Chase Sexton would have been wearing the red plates on his orange bike if not for his crash in the third and final moto of the Arlington triple crown. The crash was basically an eight-point swing between he and Monster Energy/Yamaha Star Racing’s Cooper Webb, who went into the race tied with Sexton. Coop would have been three points down, as Sexton had the overall win in hand, but his win-at-all-costs instinct got the better of him, and he ended up third overall while the crafty Webb took the win. Sexton will want to turn this thing around immediately.

Finishing third at Arlington was Suzuki’s Ken Roczen, who also happens to be on the cover our latest Racer X Magazine. Obviously, Roczen lost that “red plate special” in the time since the magazine went to the printer and where we are now in the series, but he earned this cover in January and early February by taking over the points lead without actually having won a race. The 55th Daytona would be an amazing race for him to get his first win of ’25 and chip away at Webb and Sexton in the points.

In 250SX the East Division resumes and that means a chance at redemption for points leader Max Anstie. If you remember, he lost the Detroit race after that late-race red flag and the subsequent green-white-checkered sprint which went to Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki’s Levi Kitchen. Anstie is a fantastic sand rider and there is some of that out there on the infield. Also keep an eye on last year’s winner Tom Vialle, the defending 250SX East Champion. He’s been steady but not spectacular so far.

On a different note, tonight the Daytona International Speedway folks are having an “Supercross mixer” at the 500 Club here on the infield. They started having this happy-hour get-togethers a couple of years ago as DIS President Frank Kelleher wanted the SX paddock to know how much they appreciate this long-running event. This time the mixer will have added meaning as Bevo Forti will be honored with a retirement party of sorts. Bevo is an industry icon who quietly got off the road last year after five decades at the races. RedBud’s Amy Ritchie and Unadilla’s Jill Robinson got together with DIS to include Bevo tonight, and so the entire supercross paddock will have a chance to give Bevo a proper send-off.

And speaking of Daytona International Speedway, I am proud to say that both MX Sports and Ricky Carmichael have agreed to a contract extension that will keep the RCSX here for at least three more years, and Ricky as the host of this race as well as track architect. This whole partnership got started back in 2008 at Loretta Lynn’s when the recently-retired Ricky was looking for something to do that would help give back to the SX/MX community. He’d race Daytona as a junior minicyclist back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, but they “amateur day” went away. The idea we hatched together with MX Sports’ Tim Cotter was to approach the speedway with the idea of bringing the amateur race back, with Ricky as the host. They agreed, and in 2009 the first RCSX filled the massive Speedway’s infield with campers and motorhomes. It’s been packed ever since.

You can watch the RCSX streaming live all day Monday on www.RacerTV.com. They won’t be filming Sunday because the whole crew will be over at the Big Boar GNCC at Palatka, which will stream that afternoon.

So there’s a lot going on down here, including press day, which starts at 1 p.m., so let me through this over to the other guys and get my own Bike Week started!

DAYTONA! (Matthes)

Man I'm excited for Daytona this year. First, we have my dear friend Frank Kelleher, who runs the Speedway, hooking me up with some VIP credentials (Thanks JB!) to watch the race and also, because with no Eli Tomac or Jett Lawrence, this thing is wide open. There are races on the schedule that everyone wants to win, and Anaheim 1 and Daytona are for sure two of the biggest ones. We had Zach Osborne on the Moto:60 Show yesterday and he said one of his biggest regrets was not ever making the podium at Daytona. I would've bet a lot of money Zach had at least made the box in 250SX at some point, right? Anyways, Chase Sexton, Ken Roczen and Cooper Webb all have a chance to win their first Daytona and I think those desires are gonna make this race absolutely epic.

I can make a case for each of the three that they're gonna win like:

Chase Sexton: Speed to burn. 

Ken Roczen: Maybe the most amount of laps led in Daytona without a win? Starts are on point.

Cooper Webb: It's gonna get nasty, rough and you just know he's gonna figure it out. Plus, like, he's got two wins in a row.

Daytona isn't the same as it used to be thanks to a smaller footprint and different obstacles for the track builders to account for but it's still special for these guys. 

Also, I want to see what the promoters are going to do to keep one of the traditions of recent Daytonas, where the fans run onto the track to surround the podium. That means the fans get to cross the track from the grandstands to the infield, but the Speedway has to make sure we don't have a repeat of last year where racers were still out there and thousands of fans were running across the track. That wasn't good.  (Note: DIS is using crowd fence that can’t be pushed over like last year’s bicycle rack and also have several gates that are marked where fans can go out on the track once it’s completely clear.)

Injury Updates (Jason Weigandt)

While part of the TV broadcast over the weekend in Arlington, I was able to interview both Jorge Prado (via Zoom) and Hunter Lawrence (who came to the race) and get some updates. Jorge says he dislocated his shoulder over three years ago and was lucky to have gotten by without surgery for this long—and he was able to grab two MXGP World Championships during that time! His crash at Anaheim 2 wasn’t that bad, but the shoulder was on borrowed time, so, surgery was required. Monster Energy Kawasaki team manager Dan Fahey told me Jorge should be back on the bike in late April, which will give him around a month of prep before Pro Motocross. Dan says Jorge wasn’t making massive changes to his bike during supercross  testing, so they believe the limited amount of outdoor testing that he gets will be enough.

Hunter will also be back for Pro Motocross following his own labrum surgery. Hunter says that, luckily, his labrum was only partially torn, which cuts the recovery time from the surgery quite a bit. But he’s bummed because they had finally made some breakthroughs with the bike leading up to the Tampa Supercross, where he literally didn’t make it one lap in his heat race.

Hunter also said he 100% expects his brother Jett to race Fox Raceway opener as well, because Hunter once recovered from ACL surgery in three months, and now Jett will have the same amount of time but also gets access to all the latest technology and recovery techniques. Back when Hunter hurt his knee in Europe, they basically had nothing and he still made it back in three months.

SMX Next at Daytona (DC)

The oldest round of Monster Energy AMA Supercross will include the youngest riders in the sport, not only with the Ricky Carmichael Amateur Supercross, but with the second race of the 2025 SMX Next program. Back will be Anaheim 2 front-runners Landen Gordon and Enzo Timmerman of Kawasaki Team Green and Yamaha-mounted Brandon Hartz. Joining the program for the first time will be Vincent Wey, the son of longtime contender Nick Wey, Honda-mounted Tiger Wood, KTM rider Deacon Denno and more. The participants will have an SMX Next seminar on Friday afternoon, have one open practice and then two timed qualifying sessions, and finally a single main event during the Saturday night program that should be 8 minutes plus one lap.

In last year's SMX Next race at Daytona (then called SX Futures) the top three finishers were Drew Adams, Cole Davies and Casey Cochran. All three were signed to factory deals this for this season, though Rockstar GaGas-backed Cochran was hurt during the preseason and Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki's Adams got hurt in January, right after finishing 8th at Anaheim 2. As for Cole Davies, he's been on fire in the 250SX West Division with Yamaha Star Racing and is currently ranked third behind only Haiden Deegan and Julien Beaumer, both of whom went through this same program.

Hill is Rolling (Weigandt)

Matthes had me co-host his PulpMX show on Monday. I flew home from Arlington, hung out with the family at home for 10 hours, then went back to the airport to fly to Vegas. The show is always so fun to do, we had Ryan Villopoto on to talk about his son Brax winning the KTM Junior SX race in Arlington (and to tell us his Title 24 podcast is far superior to anything we do), Coty Schock explained his long journey from guy who couldn’t get through the whoops to guy who had the fastest segment times in the whoops at Glendale, and then Justin Hill called in. Hill’s profile hasn’t been very big the last few years, but I did interview him quite a bit back in his Pro Circuit Kawasaki and JGR days, and I know him as one of the smartest and most articulate riders out there. But his career has been so unpredictable and up and down since then. You don’t want to hype up Hill, because we’ve been there before and it hasn’t panned out. It appears, now, that he’s delivering on his potential. Hill’s Pulp interview was amazing. He admits that although he worked hard in his JGR days, he didn’t sweat all of the details (eating Nerds Clusters candy before going to bed) because he didn’t  think it would make a big difference. Now he’s attending to every detail, and it’s paying off. Hill even explained how the difference in dirt from one track to another impacts his riding style, and even which muscles are sore the day after the race. It was more in-depth than you get from most racers.

Hill’s results have been good this year, I’m not sure if he’s a Daytona specialist, but do not be surprised to see him put Monster Energy Team Tedder on the box a few times. I know, he has historically been hard to predict. But it sure sounds like he’s doing the right things to deliver.

Carson Mumford (Keefer)

After Detroit I spoke with Carson Mumford about his eighth place finish and it was something I wasn't expecting. I was writing my weekly column for Pulp MX and I thought maybe he wasn't gelling with his bike, but from the text message I got, I came away with a new perspective about Carson Mumford, the 2025 version.  

"I’ll give you a long but 100% truthful answer. My leg injury took a lot longer for me to come back from than any injury in my life. It’s probably going to take a year for it to be 100% I really didn’t start to get good riding until around Christmas and then of course it was like ride one day, take three off every week due to weather conditions. So with that being said I’m not my peak self. Yes I can go fast, the bike is good and I’ve always had a lot of talent and heart but I just decided for the first few rounds my biggest goal is to stay healthy and do whatever lines I know I can do for the whole main safely. So those three out of the corners were pretty big in practice and I just said I’m not even going to worry about it, just ride my laps and I get whatever I get. In Tampa I did the same thing with the whoops, I just hit them nice and slow and safe I probably lost about three positions by doing so but I just stuck to my plan. In Detroit I could’ve maybe got a 6-7th if I did those jumps but on the off chance I get tired and do something stupid and have a crash I’d be kicking myself in the ass for not just sticking to my plan. Now I don’t want you to think this is a forever plan haha. I’m hoping by the end of the season I’m stronger and mentally there for the whole race to do everything I know I can but for now it’s just not worth it in my eyes. About two weeks before the season I was feeling still really mentally rusty on the bike, I was having a hard time with my feet positioning in my right leg (the one I broke) I couldn’t really feel if I was on the ball of my foot or not and my brain was a little slow to catch that. I actually had a near crash where I was late in a moto my brain was starting to fade and I seat bounced a three out of a corner and I accidentally stepped on the rear break instead of the foot peg and when I say I almost died I really almost ended it all!  So ya I know it’s not the most fun thing to watch me go from the lead and get 8th on the night but I’m hoping to play the long game this year I definitely think when I’m riding good I’m actually pretty on it with those front guys so I know it’s there and can come along as long as I’m there racing every weekend!"!

This was something I thought was a well thought out plan from a kid who is growing into a veteran. Getting hurt is not the best plan to build upon getting good results so maybe these "top tens" will stack into "top fives" then podiums. It's nice hearing that some of these "kids" are actually using their heads and not just sending it for a huge reward huge risk option. Look for Carson up near the top five this weekend in Daytona.

LORETTA'S (Matthes)

So my friend Kris Keefer told me that he thinks I could make the national amateur championships at Loretta's if I put some work into it. So, life is about having goals right? I was questioning my goals when I loaded up at 5 A.M. the Sunday after Detroit to head to Mesquite, AZ for the Area qualifier. I didn't ride well there but by default, I made the regional in Pala at the end of May. This is where I need to get busy with more riding; I have the cycling part of this whole thing down as I do that a lot but I do need to do more motos. Since this is DC's column and he didn't text me back the other day, maybe he'll see this here and grant me comps for the Regional and if I make that, at Loretta's also? Oh and I'm gonna need a great parking spot as well there Davey. And remember, if this goes poorly, it's all Keefer's fault.  (DC response: No. You’re on your own when it comes to qualifying for Loretta Lynn’s. Good luck.)

LINKS! I caught up with Jeremy Martin to talk about his role with the Star Racing Yamaha VIP program, if he's really done racing and more.

One week from today we'll be doing a live show in Indianapolis at the Irving Theater! Come join myself, Weege, JT, Phil and more to listen, laugh and learn. Buy tickets .

Want to have a chance to win a YZ450 or a bunch of other cool prizes and all the money goes to privateers? Support the Yamaha LCQ Challenge raffle.

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