Daytona! The Daytona Supercross is always a special one for the riders to win, and although I’ve had my criticisms of tracks in recent years, it would be cool as a racer to say you’ve won this race. This year’s race was exciting to me in the fact that we had no previous winners in the 450SX field, and you know it was going to mean a lot to these guys. Plus, we had a very good title fight on our hands.
The designer of the track, Ricky Carmichael, told me that there were 15 fewer jumps this year than the past year, which was surprising to me because it did seem busy, so I don’t know how 15 more jumps were added last year, right? Anyway, I thought the track was pretty good really, and last year’s was also. It’s not been the follow-the-leader track of a few years ago, either. The split lane worked, the jump combinations were all over the map, we had a “jump the wall” thing going on, and all in all, it was a cool track. It's also tough. Daytona gets rough, the lines change lap to lap, the vision isn’t the greatest with the lights they haul in, and the black dirt and things can get hairy really fast at the speedway.
Well, he did it! Ken Roczen won his first Daytona SX and his first race of the year, which was the 23rd of his career. It extends his record of most 450SX wins without a title as well. Roczen earned this by passing three riders, including points leader Cooper Webb, to grab the win. His line over the jump before the sand where he would move right to left, carry more speed into the sand then jump up onto the off camber, then rail the outside and jump off, was a thing of beauty. Late in the race he was getting caught by Webb and yeah, WE ALL WERE THINKING THE SAME THING, but he held Webb off (with Webb taking some of the blame) to take the win. Had to feel great afterward, and yeah, without the Tampa “thing” (which team manager Larry Brooks was still mad about after the race), Roczen would be in the points lead right now.
As I mentioned, Webb stalled his bike earlier in the main and then made a few mistakes in the rhythm two turns after mechanic’s area that held him back from making that “Webby” push to get Roczen. His ride in the heat from last place was pretty good and he was just okay in qualifying. But none of that matters in a 20-minute main event because Webb’s going to do his thing. And yeah, I thought he was going to do his thing—until he didn’t! Either way, another podium for Webb at the Speedway and he doubled his points lead from five to ten, so he’ll take that.
Chase Sexton—yeah man, I don’t know. He looked incredible in qualifying, and you’d think the speed, creativity, and strength he has would play into his hands to take a Daytona win. But as you all saw, it was not too be. He hit the deck hard in the heat, rode the LCQ, worked really hard in the main to get to the point where I thought he might win it, and then fell apart the last three laps to lose more points. The fade was weird for sure. I know they’re battling shock fade issues over there at KTM, but this was something else to me. I checked in with someone who would know, and they thought it was just the crash in the heat and the extra laps in the LCQ all catching up to him late in the race. That seems a little bizarre, but I mean, I’ll buy the general soreness, stress, etc. catching up to you, all things considered. I’d still rather have heard it was a bike issue I suppose than the former. Daytona was there for the taking for Chase, until it wasn’t.
Imagine you’re from Florida and grew up going to Daytona SX. Now imagine you get to the point where you’re a factory rider and get to race Daytona. Now take that one step further and imagine you’ve been able to win races and collect 22 250SX podiums in your career, but not one at Daytona. Well, that’s over now, because RJ Hampshire had a dream day at Daytona. He was the fastest qualifier, won his heat, and passed three guys to get to the front and won Daytona rather easily. Great night for Hampshire, who said that due to his wrist injury coming into the series, he adjusted his suspension to help with it, but it was too much. So, he went back to his more traditional setup and is much happier. He said he was going to have to jump the whoops, which he did (pretty much everyone did), and honestly, no matter what setup Hampshire had, I think he was gonna win Daytona. He was that good out there. He didn’t even have any “RJ” moments!
Max Anstie kind of forced it in there with leader Tom Vialle in the second turn and paid the price for that in crashing and being dead last. But considering he had a huge crash on press day and then had to fight from last to get to sixth (helped by the red flag for Levi Kitchen but hey, he was hurt by the red flag in Detroit!), he can’t feel too bad right now.
Looking at the points, he’s got a six-point lead on Vialle right now and yes, Vialle can be deadly with his starts, but from what we’ve seen so far, Anstie has more speed than the Frenchman, right? And next he’s got 13 on Chance Hymas who rode well at Daytona, but that was a career best fourth for Chance (who’s also not 100 percent yet, physically) so yeah, I don’t think Anstie is that stressed about him, either? I think it’s the 14-point lead he has on Hampshire that would be the one he’s looking at, in terms of a potential title threat. We have three showdowns coming up where anything can happen, sure, but so far Anstie is in a good spot even with this sixth this weekend, methinks.
I’m not a believer in karma or curses or whatever, but what in the hell is going on with Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki and its riders in the last few years? Mitch Payton’s rock of the team was Levi Kitchen, who was going to challenge for wins indoors and out. Well, he now joins the list of banged up PC riders due to a horrific crash (he sustained a broken collarbone and several fractures in his upper back) in the main in Daytona and will be out for a while. The team’s other rider, Cameron McAdoo, had been riding with a torn ACL but then decided after his heat and before the main that it was too much and now he’s out for the year. Those two join Ty Masterpool and Drew Adams on the sidelines (although Masterpool and Adams should both be back soon), and let’s not forget Garrett Marchbanks missed a race with an injury and is out of the 250SX West title fight.
The team’s top rider now is Seth Hammaker, who got on the box in Daytona (despite two off-track excursions in the main early) but even he was felled by food poisoning in Detroit and couldn’t get a good finish there! Also, although I think Hammaker has a bright future ahead of him, he hasn’t, so far, shown the ability to stay healthy either. I hope Payton buys Tums by the bucket because he’s gonna need them.
Some other news and notes:
Jason Anderson holeshot Daytona and on a track that rewards speed and creativity, one would think JA21 should’ve been good to hold onto a podium or for sure a top five, right? Nope, he had arguably his worst race of the year. I don’t think he fell, and he still slipped back to eighth. Yikes! That wasn’t good at all.
I sat down with Anderson’s team manager, Dan Fahie, before the race to talk about Anderson, Jorge Prado and more. You can listen to that conversation HERE.
Justin Cooper was sneaky good at Daytona. He stuck right with the Sexton as they went forward and pounced when it was time on the last lap. I was told this weekend J-Coop has a bone stock motor in his 450 (with mapping and an exhaust) which makes his holeshots more impressive. After a tough start to the year, the #32 is coming around.
Benny Bloss has a wrist injury that’s been bugging him a few rounds and you can see him not ride as well as he’s capable of. Last year he was great at Daytona, but this year he struggled a bit. I like to make fun of Bloss about his teammate Mitchell Oldenburg being the #1 rider on the Beta team, but they are close for sure and my underrated rider in this year’s series is Freckle (Oldenburg). He was 13th in Daytona and sits 16th in the points.
Hardy Munoz is solid man. I don’t know what happened to the guy that was super-fast but crashed a ton, now he’s basically Mike LaRocco out there. Fast, solid, steady (outside of his wheelie-to-hitting-a-Tuff-Block-to-hitting-the-finish-line-structure that I saw on social media). Tenth in Daytona and 12th in the points.
The “I don’t know man,” award for this column is Austin Forkner. I know he was sick at round one, but we haven’t seen the Forkner of old at all so far. I know some of the Triumph guys are shaking their heads and are also wondering and hoping, that he can get back to his old form. He had a long offseason after a serious injury and he’s on a new bike for the first time in forever. I suppose you have to give him more time but man, we haven’t seen a glimpse of his old speed at any point this season.
Last season I commented more than a few times that Dylan Ferrandis was Mr. Invisible all year on the Phoenix Honda, and I thought this year might be different. Dylan himself said the 2025 Honda was way better for him than the ’24, he went to the Moto Sandbox training facility where Roczen, Kitchen, etc. train and yeah, optimism was high. Well, we’re halfway through the series and yes, he’s missed a race with injury but man, it’s kind of been more of the same. He’s had a season best of seventh a couple of times, a good start here or there, and he’s “solid,” but we haven’t seen any breakout rides from the #14 for a year-and-a-half now.
Thanks for reading OBS from Daytona, we’re onto Indianapolis this weekend with a 250SX showdown and that should be bonkers. Email me at matthes@racerxonline.com to chat about this or anything else.
