This thing is getting tight! Just three rounds to go in the 2025 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship, and the series went to New Jersey for the East Rutherford SX, the place where the New York Jets and Giants play. Yeah man, I don’t get it either, but hey…
I liked it, though. The jump onto the tabletop saw just a few riders clear it, and most land on top, which was interesting and had some different ways to do it. Two sections of whoops! Good dirt and a funky start all had me scratching my head at how the riders were going to tackle these things. Which is a good thing!
Before I get too far into this, as most of you reading this know, privateer hero Jerry Robin crashed hard in qualifying and has lost the use of his legs for now. He’s had a couple of surgeries to help things along, and as long as the spinal cord is intact, there’s hope he’ll walk again. But yeah, this is the part of the sport that sucks, and something that each one of us who rides a dirt bike has to think about. Robin’s a good dude; he’ll battle this as hard as ever, and I hope he finds himself doing the best he can. This sport sucks sometimes.
Keefer wrote a pretty good story about witnessing Jerry’s crash and all the things that us dirt bike riders have to think about—read it here.
Look, two weeks ago when we all did the math on Chase Sexton winning this championship, it went like, “Well, he would need to win five in a row, and then he would tie Webb if Webb got second every time out, and Chase would win the title on tie-breaks, but like, come on—that’s not going to happen.” Well, we’re two races into this streak, and Sexton and Webb have gone 1-2 rather easily, with Sexton getting both wins.
So yeah, five in a row seems crazy, but now it’s three in a row! That’s not crazy, right? Sexton’s win in New York, errr, East Rutherford was dominant for sure. He looked maybe as good as he has all year in taking the win.
Were the whoops the difference? Well, yes and no. Sexton was a lot better than Webb in both sets, and I think once Cooper Webb saw that, he tried a few things to bridge that gap, and when that didn’t work, he backed it down and took second place. So that explains the many segments where Sexton was better, but I think early in the race, when they were 1-2 and it was close, Webb knew that as long as he couldn’t get through those whoops, this thing was over. Take the loss of three points and bring it home, but make sure it’s just three.
Most of Sexton’s better results and wins have come in the second half of the season, so there’s something here with this late-season push, right? But to me, I think the margin of error is too small for the #4. I think Webb will push it here to get ahead of Chase in one of these next two races and get himself the gap he needs to hold on for his third 450SX title.
After Sexton started pulling away from Webb, I was watching the Justin Barcia and Aaron Plessinger battle for third. Bam flew off the track last week while leading due to a rear brake issue, and by the way, Barcia doesn’t have a podium this year, which is sort of unbelievable really. Well, he was fending off his practice partner AP for 18 laps before he went down and, with bike damage, was forced to retire.
What a blow for the #51; he’s straight up not having fun this year, that’s for sure. He was riding well! I’m not sure he’ll take the 18 laps of podium speed as a positive, but I think he should.
As for AP, yeah, he rode on by for his fifth podium of the year and fourth in five races. What a turnaround for Plessinger, right? His starts are on point, and he’s just a tick off from the top two guys.
And that leads me to my next point: in my experience, guys like AP, when the title fight is getting tight, don’t want to get involved with the two top dogs. If he gets out front and has a big lead, sure, he’s going for the win, but if he gets caught by his teammate (Sexton) or one of his best buddies (Webb), he’s not going to make it hard for them to get by. And if he catches one of them (little doubtful the way they’re riding, in my opinion), he’s not going to do anything aggressive to get by them. So, another reason why I think Webb and Sexton will go one-two in these last three rounds (or Sexton/Webb, who will win is still to be determined).
This 250SX East title fight is pretty good, huh? Seth Hammaker won this weekend in a great ride as he took the lead on lap one from Nate Thrasher, and although RJ Hampshire made a run at him, Hammaker grabbed the win, and the points lead with two races to go. In third was Tom Vialle, who, while riding well, was the third-best rider in this three-man title fight.
Last week it was Hampshire holding off Hammaker for the win; this week, the roles were reversed. It’s interesting to see the champion from last year versus this kid (kind of) who is healthy and winning races for the first time in his career. Hampshire showed a lot of mettle last year in the SLC main, holding off Levi Kitchen to win his first title. Hammaker’s never been in a title fight in his, checks notes, eight previous series contested in four years.
I don’t know who I got for the title; I can make a case for either guy, but I will say this: I hope Mitch Payton wins a title soon. It’s been a long EIGHT years for him since his last title indoors (it was Justin Hill if you can believe that), and wow, that’s a long time. I asked Payton who Hammaker reminds him of in terms of past riders he’s worked with, and he thought about it and said, “Mike Kiedrowski,” which, wow, to me is really perfect. Soft-spoken, hard worker, not a guy that stands out for flash but is in good shape and rides really fast. As usual, Payton is right.
Nate Thrasher was going to do Nate Thrasher things at this race. He won the Triple Crown earlier this year and meanwhile, hasn’t gotten any other podiums in any other race. Because he’s Nate Thrasher, that’s what he does! He won the heat and looked great. Then he holeshot and led the main event, and he was going to pull a Nate Thrasher on all of us. Alas, not to be, as Seth got by him right away (and told me after the race he knew he couldn’t let Thrasher get into his groove), and Thrasher dropped to fourth soon after. Then he got penalized for cutting out one section of whoops and dropped to fifth. But man, we almost got the full Nate Thrasher experience!
Some other news and notes:
-Benny Bloss had himself a hell of a day in East Rutherford. Coming off two good races, Bloss’s day started downhill when he crashed on the very first lap of the first session in the whoops. He knocked the wind out of himself and called it early. Then in his heat, he was in qualifying position easily when he got a timing wire wrapped in his rear wheel, and it started whipping him in the back! He barely qualified for the main after all that. And then in the main, he crashed early and was like dead last. Not to worry though; his teammate Mitchell Oldenburg was 21st! From there, Bloss did a good job catching up until, wait for it, he jumped off the track and almost died. Super awesome day for Bloss and his P-19.
-Cullin Park got second in the mudder, and yes, it was by far his best career finish, and one might write that off to the mud, but he’s been really solid this year. This week he got fifth, moved to fourth with Thrasher's penalty, and he’s fourth in the points now. Great work for the Phoenix Honda rider, and I hope this earns him an outdoor spot with the team or at least an earlier contract signing for 2026 than the beginning of January. Park’s earned this.
-We had Park’s teammate Dylan Ferrandis on the PulpMX Show, who tied his season-best finish of fifth, and he earned it coming from 13th to that spot. Dylan was really good all night long, and like Sexton, he blitzed the whoops the entire main event. We told you a couple of weeks ago how Dylan got an HRC transmission and some other goodies for his bike, and on the show, we mentioned that this was nice. But typical Dylan, as in, don’t ask him a question you don’t want the answer to, said yeah sure it’s nice, but what would’ve been nicer was having the entire HRC 450! Which he was in the running for before Honda went with Dean Wilson.
-Speaking of Dean, he was approximately 115 percent better this week in getting a ninth after a battle to the death for the entire main with Justin Hill. Last week he had arm pump of death; this week he told us on the show that he could relax a bit and ride his race. Also, it seemed like Robin’s crash affected him, as he said after Jerry crashed there, he stopped doing the three in. Dean says he’s still pacing himself a bit to make sure he’s got the full main in him and doesn’t get tired, and he also laughed at the reaction of the Honda guys, who he said acted like he won the race with his ninth place.
-Devin Simonson has had a tough year. He got the ride of a lifetime with ClubMX for this SX season and promptly broke his wrist. Then he needed another surgery on it and probably shouldn’t be racing this year, but I mean, he’s got a great bike waiting for him! This weekend he made his season debut, got third in the heat, and was running top five in the main for a bit before dropping back to eighth. Really solid ride for “Baby D” out there for his first race! Also, he’s a PulpMX athlete for the last three rounds, in case you were wondering.
-There’s life with Austin Forkner! By far his best race in Triumph colors, with a good qualifying and running fifth in the main until a late-race crash. So, there’s something there (slides panic button away from his hand).
- Department of I Dunno Man: Christian Craig. That is all.
-Luke Neese had a horrible year last season, and this year he’s back to being more his steady self.
That’s it, man. We’re onto Pittsburgh, which is the first time we’ve raced there since 1983. Pretty exciting, and I think the fans will be into it. Email me at matthes@racerxonline.com if you want to chat about this or anything else.
