The 2025 motocross series is over! Budds Creek was the finale, and there wasn’t much going on there in terms of implications because Deegs didn’t need to do much to wrap up his second 250MX title. Jett had already won the 450 Championship, and yes, we were looking at the SMX points, particularly in the 450 class, but for the most part, Budds was…fine.
We’ll talk a little about Budds, but now that all 44 motos are done this summer, I thought taking a look at some of the stats of the summer would be fun, right?
Okay, so Jett and Deegan both rode very well to get the overall wins. Again. Budds is heavily start-dependent, and both of them did the right thing to get to the front. Jett probably started a little better than Haiden, but really, there was no doubt who the best guys on the day were. Props to Hunter Lawrence for winning the last moto of the year; he nailed the start and had heat from little brother most of the way, but he was flawless in taking the win.
Hunter rode well in the first moto also after a, for him, godawful start. He got all the way up to third, which was good, but one more spot and he would’ve jumped two spots in the SMX seeding. As it was, he came up tied with Cooper Webb (loses the tiebreaker, though) and one point behind Malcolm Stewart.
Jo Shimoda rode very well at Budds and was clearly better than 38 other riders. But there was that one guy, Haiden Deegan, that he wasn’t better than. After last week's magic Unadilla ride, I was thinking we might see some epic racing between the two, but it didn’t materialize. Deegan was better, but Jo still rode well, and man, what an outdoor season for him.
Eli Tomac’s start in moto two was horrific. He passed 23 riders to get up to eighth, but he didn’t have the day that he had hoped for with 5-8 scores. I don’t know if the DNF at Redbud was for sure a thing, but there’s no doubt his results were not as good after that. The long shot he had at the title coming in (sorry, not sorry) went away completely after Redbud. But now, SMX is a fresh start for the #3, and we’ll see what he can do.
Cole Davies won a moto! Yes, it was helped by penalties to Deegan and Shimoda, but I don’t know if the sport has ever seen a rider go 23-23-1 in his first three ever outdoor motos? Davies didn’t get a good start in moto two and was 17th at the checkers. You want to see a wild stat line to start a career? May I present to you Cole Davies!
Kawasaki introduced a new KX250 this year, and the rider most affected was definitely Levi Kitchen in terms of the change of power in the new bike from 2024. But also, he couldn’t ever get comfy with the bike's suspension either. Then before Budds, the PC guys all found some gearing that worked very well, and they all got good starts this weekend except for Garrett Marchbanks, whose start hook popped off before moto 1 gate drop and jacked him up. Other than that, all the riders seemed to feel the bike was way better with these changes. Why did it take ten rounds? I don’t know, bro.
I did a post-race interview with Levi where he admitted that his Daytona crash, which was ugly, definitely affected him more than he let on. It was pretty honest of him to talk about trying to get back to where he knows he can be and things like that. Although he healed healthy and all that, we don’t fully appreciate it from the outside, mentally.
But yeah, man, Kitchen, Seth Hammaker, Drew Adams, and Garrett Marchbanks make for a strong team outdoors next year, right? They just need to get back to their old levels (Kitchen), get better starts (Marchbanks), get better (Adams) and stay upright and healthy (Hammaker).
I think that Jorge Prado tried to not qualify for Budds Creek. I don’t know that for sure, but he wasn’t able to get a time inside the top 36 in either practice. So…yeah. Prado wants off the team; he doesn’t like the bike and wants to go to KTM. Unfortunately for him, there’s a rule where the top ten in points are seeded in even if they're not in the top 36 on lap times. So Prado went to the motos and did…okay? This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen, although I wasn’t at Budds Creek in 1990 when Jean Michel Bayle was told to go home by Team Honda. He said he wouldn’t help his teammate (Mike Kiedrowski) in the title hunt, so they agreed to disagree and he went home. So, Budds Creek—where factory riders revolt!
I don’t know what happened down at the podium when Deegs and Yamaha wanted to do their title celebration and the Honda guys were up there, but there were definitely words exchanged between the two camps. Weege and I got very different stories (like all stories, there are two sides and the perspectives are very different), but yeah, we’ll pick this back up the summer of 2026!
Thanks to MX Reference for compiling some numbers from the summer of 2025. Here are some that stood out for me:
Total passes in 450MX this year were:
Lorenzo Locurcio comes in first with +120 passes made and is first by a wide margin. Locurcio gained net positions in 18 of 20 motos he competed in. Locurcio’s average holeshot position was 22.65, and his moto finish average was 16.65.
RJ Hampshire was at +99 and comes in second here; the few motos where he lost positions were his best starts of the season.
Tomac comes in third here with +97, which isn’t too surprising. Tomac’s starts have never been his strength.
250MX:
As I’ve written all summer, Marchbanks’ charge from the back was a constant thing. Horrific starting position for sure. His holeshot position average was 18.18, and his moto finish average was 6.09. From the holeshot line, Marchbanks lost net positions in one moto: -1 at Red Bud Moto 2. Garrett was +266 positions this summer!
Schwartz gained net positions in 17 of 22 motos. His starts were pretty bad, with just two Top 10 positions at the holeshot line. He was +144.
Shimoda gained net positions in 19 of 22 motos. His average holeshot position was 7.95, and his moto average finish was 3.00. He was +109.
Levi Kitchen gained net positions in 17 of 22 motos and ended up +105.
- What about the other end of the spectrum? Which riders got passed the most?
450MX:
Brandon Ray leads this list with 170 positions lost. Ray competed in 18 motos and lost net positions in 16 of those. He lost a lot in DNFs. The two motos he didn’t lose net positions? He stayed exactly where he started, with a net position gain/loss of 0.
Okay, time for more Prado talk…he lost net positions in 15 of 22 motos. To his credit, his figure is a bit skewed by the Thunder Valley Moto 2 DNF, where he lost 34 positions. He only gained net positions in 4 motos, the most being 3 at Hangtown Moto 2. In first motos, Prado lost 41 net positions, in second motos, he lost -74 net positions.
Jeremy Hand lost net positions in 12 of 14 motos.
250MX:
Lance Kobusch comes in first for the 250 class with 134 positions lost. His holeshot average was 17.75, and his moto finish average was 26.85, and Kobusch only started 13 motos. That amazing moto at Hangtown, where he led for a bit, really hurt the average, by the way.
Seth Hammaker had a few DNFs skewing his results for this. -125 of his position net loss comes from just four motos. One of those came in the first moto at Budds when his chain came off. Other than those, his net loss was just -6.
Jalek Swoll had just 11 motos this summer, two of which make up for -72 of his figure. Unfortunately for Jalek, he lost positions in 10 of 11 motos. The one he didn’t? He finished in the same spot he started—a net of 0 positions.
You can see all the lists HERE
- Also, Kitchen ended up on the box at Budds Creek, which was good, but he didn’t win a moto and he never led a lap all summer—two things no one would’ve bet on before Pala, right?
- It was a Jett and Deegs summer for sure. How dominant were they? Deegan won seven of eleven overalls, Jett won nine of eleven. Jett won 16 motos, Haiden won 13, Jett led 228 laps (out of 351), Haiden led 179 (of 356), both had 21 podiums (out of 22 motos), seven holeshots for Jett to Haiden’s three. 2.8 average qualifying for Deegan, 1.4 for Lawrence and so on and so on. Did I mention that summer of 2026 should be epic?
- Quietly, Max Vohland had a nice summer with eighth in the MX points, and that’s after a good SX season. Not bad for a hand brake. Top privateer also!
Thanks for reading OBS! We’re onto SMX here, with three races coming up for a bunch of money. I know people are adding the SMX titles to a rider's resume, but don’t be fooled; it’s not a major national title if it’s three races with a gimmick points structure. BUT it is good racing, and the guys will be going for it. See you in two weeks!
