1. Mulisha Mentality:

You already know the lengths Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing’s Haiden Deegan was willing to go to secure his third SMX World Championship in a row. Deegan came into Las Vegas with his back against the wall after his get together with Levi Kitchen in St. Louis. Haiden had a messy first moto including a scary incident with Rockstar Gas Gas’ Ryder DiFrancesco and could only get to second while his title rival, Honda HRC Progressive’s Jo Shimoda took off with the win. That put Haiden into desperation mode for moto 2. Within ten seconds of the gate drop the shenanigans began. Deegan put Shimoda high in the second turn but eventually worked up to the Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki duo of Kitchen and Seth Hammaker. Deegan proceeded to play a game of cat and mouse with Kitchen and then Hammaker before taking the lead. He led for a short while before slowing down to let Shimoda catch up and that is when things escalated. Several brake checks, look overs, and attempts to punt Shimoda off the track eventually ended with the two on the ground and Deegan with a broken collarbone. To add insult to a literal injury, Haiden was docked five points by the AMA, lost $200k by dropping to fifth in points, and his Motocross of Nations debut could be put on hold once again. As Deegan summed up on Instagram: “I will always go for the win know that.”

2. Threepeat:

Deegan couldn’t complete the SMX threepeat, but Honda HRC’s Jett Lawrence did. On paper it looks like Las Vegas was another day at the office for Jett with the fast-qualifying slot, overall win and the championship, but it was not that simple. Jett seemed to struggle with the heavily watered track early in qualifying, making quite a few mistakes and even crashing on an on-off section. However, just when the number 1 showed some weakness, Lawrence went to the top of the board late. The motos were more of the same. Jett sat in fourth for half of moto one, and then caught fire and ripped through Justin Cooper, Hunter Lawrence, and Eli Tomac to take the win. In the second moto, Jett sat third behind his brother and Tomac for most of the race seemingly unable to close the gap. The third would have given Hunter the title, but with four or five laps to go Jett went Jett and found another level and caught and passed Tomac with relative ease putting him in position to clinch his third SMX title in as many attempts. There is not much you can say about Jett that has not already been said. The dude is a freak, and we are only two and a half years into his 450 career.

3. Jo’s First Title:

Jo Shimoda has been a potential race winner for a few years, but this season he has taken that next step. Right from jump Jo started the year with the A1 win, but after getting hurt the next weekend, his supercross season became a season of “what-ifs”. Right from the start of Pro Motocross, Shimoda proved that he was Deegan’s biggest threat, and he carried that momentum into SMX. Jo needed to finish second to guarantee the SMX title in Vegas, but the biggest question was how Jo would respond if Deegan decided to pull any funny business. Turns out Jo handled it as well as possible. He gave it back to Deegan enough to show him he was not going to lay over but showed incredible situational awareness that allowed him to know when to check up. On Monday night’s Pulp MX show, Jo commented that he expected even more antics from Haiden. “I thought I was going to end up on the concrete at some point. People said it was an aggressive race, but I knew it was going to be like that. So, I thought it was more chill than I thought,” he explained. In the end, Shimoda withstood the drama and clinched his first professional championship!