From there, race officials kept cutting down the time because the rain kept falling and the bottom was falling out of the track. In the end, the 250s did a six-lap main event, nine laps for the 450s.

You know it's a real mudder when you see that for 1-2-3-4 in the results, it was their career highs. Chance Hymas, Cullin Park, Gage Linville, and Justin Rodbell were the top four finishers in the 250SX main event, which may have been the shortest main event in Monster Energy Supercross history at six laps and just nine minutes, 42 seconds. And the awesome post-race interviews for all of these guys made for great television--especially the wide-eyed and disbelieving Rodbell, who had the same look on his face as an adolescent boy opening a Playboy magazine for the first time!

All told, it was the best finish ever for 13 of the 22 riders in the 250SX main (thank you, Clinton Fowler, for that bit).

The last time a 1-2-3 was all new to a supercross podium was 2007 at the Atlanta round inside the Georgia Dome, when Ryan Dungey, Darcy Lange, and Matt Goerke made up the Lites podium—and it was Dungey's first-ever AMA Supercross. As far as a 1-2-3-4 goes, the super-muddy 1991 Hangtown 125 National—the one-moto race due to the rain and a rapidly flooding infield—saw Doug Henry, Buddy Antunez, Denny Stephenson, and the late Brian Swink go 1-2-3-4, though Swink technically tied his career best, having also finished fourth at Gatorback that year, which was his rookie full season.

It was also a career best for 450 class runner-up Shane McElrath, and another gutsy late-race drive by Cooper Webb that saw the points leader pass some top guys—Ken Roczen, Justin Barcia, and most importantly, Chase Sexton—on a crazy last lap. The WeWentFast guys broke that incredible charge by Coop down well, and it’s worth a visit right here.

So now we go into Philadelphia, home of the reigning NFL Super Bowl Champions, the Eagles. We have a tie in the 250SX East Division points as Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki's Seth Hammaker will wear red plates for the first time in his career (and at his home race) along with Vialle, who got 0 points last weekend after getting stuck a couple of times. And with this being a 250 East/West Showdown race we get to see Haiden Deegan and Julien Beaumer get back together for the first time since their Seattle brouhaha that spilled over to the podium. Deegan has the points lead by 14 over the Red Bull KTM of Beaumer, and so far he is the only rider in the either division to have won more than one race this year. Deegan was on the East Coast early as he and his sister Hailie and their dad Brian were all featured on a segment of Thursday morning's Fox & Friends up in New York City, celebrating National Siblings Day.

In the 450 division, Webb has stretched his points lead back out to 15 over Sexton in what's now a two-horse race for the 2025 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship. Ken Roczen is third, then Justin Cooper and Malcolm Stewart round out the top five. And while he’s missed the last two races, and plans to miss the rest for yet-to-be-disclosed reasons, Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Jason Anderson is still eighth in points.

Don't forget that tomorrow's race is a day-race that starts at 3 p.m. ET, with Race Day Live starting at 9:30 a.m. from the City of Brotherly Love.

Pro Perspective (Jason Thomas)

For the second weekend in a row, weather will be the topic of conversation. Teams are still reeling from the devastating rains in Foxborough, and we have more on tap for Philadelphia. There's a chance that rains taper off Saturday afternoon and we get a less muddy version of Monster Energy AMA Supercross than we saw last weekend.

If we do catch a slight break, the racing will look much different. Simply circulating won't cut it. Riders will need to "race" the track and try to pick up the intensity. Putting rhythm sections together consistently is a big factor in lowering lap times on a track like that. Look at how much time Webb made up in the final laps in Foxboro by simply doing a few doubles. When the track is in a slightly better condition, that variable becomes even more important.

Also, the dynamics change a bit for who will do well and why. The mud in Foxboro was so debilitating that riders dabbing their feet (or dragging) was unavoidable. That gives a big edge to the taller riders. Every mistake can be offset by putting their long legs down and stabilizing themselves. For shorter riders, the angle needed to dab their feet is more likely to end up in a crash. They don't have the leg length to put their feet down as a rudder all the way around the track. The cost of a mistake, and there are several of those every lap, is much more punitive. A less muddy racetrack makes it a more level playing field. Riders won't need to put their foot down multiple times in every corner. Mistakes become less likely and less costly. That swings some of the advantage back to the middle. Riders like Webb and JCoop aren't as vulnerable to the endless mistakes. Watch for that to be a visible change in the race dynamic if the rains subside Saturday afternoon.

High Water Marks (DC)

This past weekend saw a couple of brands make bigger splashes than they ever have before in two respective series, Monster Energy AMA Supercross and the FIM World Motocross Championships. Here in the U.S., Benny Bloss had a very good and muddy 450 main event, finishing a career-best seventh in the 450 class, now the high-water mark for Beta. Bloss admitted later that he crashed a couple of times and even made a pit stop.

Over in Europe, Camden McLellan earned a career-best second in the MX2 class, which means Triumph's new high-water mark is a second in Grand Prix competition. And Ducati rider Jeremy Seewer didn't have great finishes, but he holeshot each moto in the MXGP of Sardinia. (In SX, Triumph didn't have a very good night as Austin Forkner ended up crashing in both his heat race and the LCQ and finished fifth, which made him the first rider not to qualify.)

And speaking of Sardinia, the sand track off the coast of Italy could not have been any more different from the conditions that met the riders in Spain a few weeks back. In that deeply muddy race, Fantic riders Glenn Coldenhoff and Andrea Bonacorsi slithered to second and third overall, making that race the best one ever for Fantic. Well, to prove it was no fluke due to weather, Coldenhoff again finished second in Sardinia, while teammate Andrea Bonacorsi was fourth overall this time. It's only a matter of time before one of these Fantic riders gets an actual win.

Also, welcome back to Red Bull KTM's Jeffrey Herlings, who finished seventh in the second moto at Sardinia after basically a six-month layoff due to a knee injury. The best sand rider in the world, Herlings was nowhere near 100% as normally the Bullet would be out front at a place like Sardinia.

One more high-water mark: Dutch girls Lotte Van Drunen, Lynn Vale, and Shana Van den Vilst finished 1-2-3 in the WMX division, which is probably no real surprise given that the girls probably grew up on the same sand tracks as Herlings and Coldenhoff! And since the WMX is off this weekend in Europe, Lotte is lining up in MX2 in Trentino. Had she raced MX2 in Sardinia she definitely would have scored points as there were only 18 riders on the gate in the second moto.

Win Ads: Rain or Shine (DC)

We were wondering how the different winners at the Foxborough Supercross would celebrate their muddy win in the pages of this week's Cycle News, and they did not disappoint. Red Bull KTM embraced the muck with a back shot of Plessinger navigating the ruts, while Honda HRC Progressive gave praise to Hymas for how difficult the conditions were and punning, "The competition didn't have a chance." And the Yoshimura ad didn't even show the pipe side of Hymas' bike but went all-in on his belly flop into the mud after his first-ever 250SX win. And with Kawasaki not having their 450 guys in the series at this point, they went with French rider Romain Febvre's MXGP win over in Italy... But how cool would it have been for Kawi to celebrate Southeast Sales-backed Logan Leitzel of Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, who finished 9th in the first 450SX he ever qualified for?!

2025 Yamaha YZ125 (Keefer)

I went back to my roots this week and met Cudby at GH for a little two-smoke fun! Since the Two-Stroke Nationals are headed to Glen Helen this weekend, I thought, why not bust out the new stock blue tiddler for some fun? What sucks about these Racer X Tested videos is that Cudby starts filming me as soon as I get on the track, and I get zero time to adjust to the machine, so you're watching me evolve in real time (in these videos).

To say that I was in the wrong gear the first 15 minutes would be an understatement. Bogging down in third gear while trying to rail a berm wasn't ideal, so forcing myself to get into second was on the agenda most of the day.

Although I don't ride two-strokes that much, it was fun for the day to hop on a 125 and remember how hard it was to go fast on one! Check out the video that drops here on Racer X soon.

YAMAHA LCQ CHALLENGE RACE (Matthes)

It's that time, folks! The SX folks are letting us have our own PulpMX Race in Denver for 22 privateers yet again. Not sure how they let us pull it off, but they do! So I take the top 17 450SX racers from the LCQs (fifth in the LCQ is given 25 points, just like an actual win, and 6th gets 22, 7th gets 20, etc.) and basically, we'd like to reward the riders that race all 17 rounds of SX and don't make any or many main events. We then fill out the last five spots with some wildcard riders, and then two main events; the second main is a staggered start with 22nd place up front and 1st in the back.

We've given over 700K to the guys over the years. This is our third year of having a race for it, and it's a lot of fun. The Vurbmoto guys are gonna stream it for us on our YT, and we have a lot of celebrities working the broadcast for us. What you people have to do is buy a raffle ticket for a chance to win a 2025 Yamaha YZ450F or a bunch of other cool prizes! ALL the money goes to the 22 riders in the race.

So the points are getting tight here. Anthony Rodriguez just moved into the 17th and final spot in the points, but there are still three races to go before the field is set.

Get a raffle ticket (or two or three) HERE.

MXGP of Trentino (DC)

The FIM World Motocross Championships will race in Italy for the second week in a row, this time on the beautiful Trentino circuit that sits at the base of the Dolomites. Last weekend they raced on the island of Sardinia off the coast on a sand track, but this time it will be mostly hard-pack and slick. We will also see a return of Antonio Cairoli to competition as he lines up on the Ducati Desmo450 MX bike alongside teammate Jeremy Seewer. Last weekend the Swiss rider grabbed both holeshots in Sardinia on the Ducati, so don't be surprised to see the 39-year-old Cairoli up front in one of these Trentino motos. (And remember, this was the track of one of his greatest wins ever, when he came from way back in the second moto to salvage second place and take the overall win in 2017.)

Among the riders Cairoli passed that day was Jeffrey Herlings, who finally was healthy enough to begin his 2025 campaign in Sardinia. He finished 20-7 in the two motos and is still a few races away from getting back up to his normal race speed.

When Sweden Reigned (DC)

In the 1950s and into the 1960s the most powerful nation in the motocross world was Sweden. Over the course of an 11-year span, Swedish riders like Torsten Hallman and Rolf Tibblin won nine FIM World Motocross Championships, usually on Swedish-made motorcycles like Husqvarna, Hedlund, and Monark. During this era, there was a writer and photographer named Bo Ingvar Svensson who covered the Swedish riders and their teams. Finally, after all these years, a book publisher has pulled together all of Svensson's images and words to create In the Footsteps of Motocross Legends, a massive and stunning 658-page coffee-table book, and only 306 versions of the "international edition" are available for purchase. They come with a certificate of authenticity signed by the author as well as Torsten Hallman, the man who was highly instrumental in bringing world-class motocross to America in the late 1960s. (And if the brochure we received at Racer X about In the Footsteps of Motocross Legends is any indication, this book will be out of this world!) You can read more about the book and also watch a short film about Swedish motocross' glory days right here.

"You get to experience the motocross races of the 40s, 50s, and 60s so realistically described that you think you are there. Feel the smells of gasoline, Castrol R oil, hear the sound of the machines. Watch the riders and constructors, read race reports from some of the most amazing races, and explore the world where the motocross machines were made: Monark, Husqvarna, Lito, and Hedlund."

The book comes in three different editions, with three different price points, for what the brochure calls, "The stories you haven't heard, the bikes you dream about, the dirt you haven't smelled, photos and films you've never seen, two decades that shaped motocross--that's what it's all about."

The Wolfman (Matthes)

Tom "The Wolfman" Webb is a moto media icon who worked his way up to become the editor of both Dirt Bike magazine and Dirt Rider magazine. He's also someone who I've wanted to talk to for a long time, but Tom has resisted coming on to talk through his brother Mike. Maybe it was a Hi-Torque thing (HT owns Dirt Bike magazine), but he's been on the list of guys who I grew up reading that I wanted to interview. I had already chatted with Zap Espinoza, Scott Wallenberg, and Karel Kramer, and it was the Kramer podcast that led Tom to email me with a compliment. So it seemed that he did want to talk. After his recovery from a knee replacement, I lined up a podcast with Tom, and we released it this week on this very site.

It was a lot of fun to do. It's funny how the late Roland Hinz, the owner of Hi-Torque, doesn't come across as an easy guy to work for in these interviews I conduct with people who used to work with him. Webb shared some of those stories and others that include traveling all over the world to ride a dirt bike, working with Super Hunky and Jim Holley, the magazine business as a whole, and more. Tom seemed like a great dude, an awesome storyteller, and I'm happy to finally get his story out there. Thanks, Wolfman!

Listen to the Webb podcast file directly or find it on the PulpMX App or your local podcast player.

The #971 Mystery (DC)

There are a couple of cool old-school moto Facebook groups that I like to participate in: "Western PA Motocross Time Machine" and "Old School Motocross," posting old photos and just doing some bench racing. Earlier this week, Michael Dowd posted a photo that appeared to be from 1986, featuring #6 David Bailey, #Rick Johnson, #7 Bob Hannah, and then #971 on a Yamaha, which pretty much everyone would guess to be a young Larry Ward. The only problem is that in 1986, "Big Bird" was on a Kawasaki Team Green KX125, and he never wore Hi-Point racing gear. My friend Geoff Hardy and I debated who it might be, and we both went looking for images and results from 1986 that might give us a better idea. As I was scrolling through the old Cycle News Archives, I found race coverage from a CMC night race at Ascot Park, and there he was, #971, but it wasn't Larry Ward. It was Jeff Stanton. So I called "6-Time" to find out what the deal was—I had no idea that Stanton ever wore that number, as he was always #363 when he raced amateur (except for Loretta Lynn's).

"In 1986, I did my last year at Loretta Lynn's as a Yamaha support rider," explained the future AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer. "Broc Glover had gotten hurt, so Yamaha called me and asked if I wanted to race the last 500 National on his bike. So I got a pro license, they assigned me #971, and my dad and I drove out west in our van. I ended up doing pretty well (8th), and that gave me enough points for a decent number (#56) for my first full year as a rookie, 1987."

So where did this photo come from? I asked, because it's definitely a supercross and not Washougal, and in 1986 the AMA Supercross Championship ended in July at the LA Coliseum, a month before Loretta Lynn's.

"There was a race in Tokyo, Japan, and Yamaha asked me if I wanted to go," recalls Stanton. "I said, 'Absolutely!' So off I went to Japan to do my first supercross as a professional." Stanton had done some amateur SX racing at the Pontiac Silverdome, but this was the real deal with guys like Bailey, Johnson, Hannah, and the rest. Stanton would finish eighth again, one spot behind his new professional teammate, Broc Glover. The winner? His future Honda teammate, Rick Johnson.

And speaking of Stanton, we mentioned the passing of his father, Erwin, after a long battle with his health. Mr. Stanton died in his bedroom, surrounded by family members, at their farm in Sherwood, Michigan, and became the fifth generation of the Stanton family to die in that room—the farm has been in the Stanton family's possession since they built it in 1836! They held a celebration of life earlier this week, and then a long funeral procession took Erwin to the family graveyard. Along the route, neighbors had pulled their tractors up to the side of the road and lifted their buckets as a salute to Erwin Stanton. According to Jeff, the family is now going to turn the 189-year-old farmhouse into something of a family museum.

Robocross? (Bryan Stealey)

And now for something completely different... Kawasaki just unveiled the strangest off-road vehicle concept ever. They call it the Corleo, and it's basically a robotic horse. Or maybe a dire wolf, which has been in the news for other reasons this week.

This futuristic machine, theoretically powered by a 150cc hydrogen engine, will supposedly tackle all kinds of off-road terrain while you ride along. If the words "theoretically" and "supposedly" don't make it clear: This is a concept only, and all video of it is CGI. You can watch it in action below:

In reality, Kawasaki only displayed a static, full-scale model at an expo. No one has ridden this thing yet, and who knows if the Corleo will ever become more than a concept.

Could make for an interesting video game, though....

Hey, Watch It!

From our friends at Vurbmoto: In Episode 1 of Blending Realities, we metaphorically merge the dreams of a racer, ourselves, and the very talented Martin Palm, a replica miniature track builder. Our dreams culminate and collide alongside many stars of our sport, present and past, as we take a journey of discovering where all of our dreams begin.

Daxton, er, Dayton Briggs' first-ever 250SX main event made for a fun video this week:

Shane McElrath was one of the many riders to have a career-best SX finish at Foxborough, in the 450 class:

Head-Scratching Headline/s of the Week

"Florida fan falls from traffic light while celebrating NCAA National Championship win"—WCJB 

“Philadelphia funeral turns chaotic after pallbearers fall into grave with casket”—9 News

"Thoughts and Prayers to Darts Legend Michael van Gerwen Who Had to Pull Out of an Event After Injuring His Neck Trying on Some Shirts" -Barstool Sports

"Foster mom is charged with abuse as authorities investigate whether a girl was traded for a monkey" -AP

“Missouri foster mom to 200 is accused of trading a child for an exotic monkey”—NBC News

"Amateur urinates in creek near 13th green in opening round at Masters" -SI

Random Notes

Spotted this shout-out on the upcoming Pittsburgh Supercross at the local Sheetz convenience store, featuring Haiden Deegan, who unfortunately is not racing in the 250SX East division this season.

And Travis Pastrana, the 2000 AMA 125 Pro Motocross Champion, is returning to racing this weekend, but not on dirt bikes. Instead, it's Pastrana's other passion, rally cars. He's racing in the Olympus Rally out in the Pacific Northwest in a Subaru WRX ARA25L. Check it out here.

Good luck to #199.

On a final note, we went to say goodbye to an old racing buddy and a Morgantown neighbor this week. Back in the day, Chuck Ward was a promising young rider who was a regular out at High Point Raceway, Pyramid Valley, Motordrome, Brownsville, and more. He made it up to the expert class but then realized that he had a bigger passion for racing dirt sprint cars. Chuck was moving up the ranks there too when he suffered a horrendous crash in the mid-1980s, leaving him with a severe brain injury that would alter the course of his life. When he passed on April 2 at the Madison Nursing and Rehab Center, Chuck Ward was 62 years old. Godspeed, Chuck.