For the professional side of AMA Supercross and Motocross, October 1 used to be announcement day of new riders and teams. Today’s contracts now stretch into October to accommodate the SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX) Playoffs and the Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations, which makes the “official” announcement days a little harder to predict. We believe it might be November before you officially see riders on new teams, like Jorge Prado and Eli Tomac on Red Bull KTMs, Dylan Ferrandis and Justin Barcia on Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull Ducatis, and Chase Sexton on a Monster Energy Kawasaki.
KTM, though, already said good bye to Sexton in a press release recently. While Sexton is still not discussing Kawasaki plans in public yet, he did talk to renowned filmmaker Troy Adamitis (of The Great Outdoors fame) about leaving KTM in a new video on Adamitis’ MySport YouTube channel.
“I dealt with a lot of stuff this year that I haven’t really dealt with… just mentally and made it pretty hard,” said Sexton. “So, I think now is the time to kind of reset and go for my second half of my career. That’s kind of where I’m at now and trying to write the wrongs that I’ve made and just hit the reset button a little bit.”
Sexton says he wasn’t having as much fun as he was when he was younger, and wants to return to that in what he calls the second half of his career.
“In the last two years, I have kind of gotten away from just how I felt as a kid,” he explained. “Obviously I’m getting older, but I’m still young. I still enjoy riding my dirt bike. I love what I do and there’s no reason not to have fun while I’m doing it. So, I think when I say reset and get ready for the second half, just more find that teenage version of myself, find the energy and the fun again.
“I think just sometimes you get stuck in a rut and [it] could be your environment, could be people you work with, could be yourself,” he continued. “All the outside stuff that shouldn’t affect what I do. Get rid of that and just go back to the basics. For me, that’s the goal for this year.”
Adamitis asked Sexton about making the call to KTM brass like Roger De Coster and Ian Harrison and saying he would not return to the team for 2026.
“It wasn’t that much fun!” said Sexton of making that call. “As far as Roger goes, Roger helped a lot. I felt like that was one person I could go to and he was going to give me an honest answer, and help me as much as I could. I still have a lot of respect for him, and obviously Ian, but maybe personalities didn’t mesh as good as I thought they were going to, and that can be on me, I’ll take responsibility for that. But it was time to move on. You only get so many years as a racer and you owe it to yourself to make the most of them. So I felt like it was time to make a change.”
Sexton raced for KTM for two years. His exit from Honda HRC at the end of 2023 felt pretty raw, emotionally, also. At that time of that switch, he spoke highly of KTM’s efforts to do whatever it took to win. The squad did have quite a bit of success together, including the 2024 Pro Motocross Championship and a close-fought second place (by just two points) in the 2025 Monster Energy AMA Supercross standings. He won a lot of races for the brand, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy. As Adamitis wisely says while narrating this video, it’s a “world where winning is the only satisfaction for a rider and his team.”
Sexton might be a few weeks away from explaining more of his decision to go to Monster Energy Kawasaki. He closes this video by talking about the standard goals of winning titles, and a bigger picture.
“For me, winning championships and wining races is what I get paid to do,” he says. “The fire in me is big. I also want to try to be a role model for younger kids. For me, being someone that someone can look up to is almost just as important as winning. Being true to who I am, that’s something I’ve always been and I can say confidently in my career that’s something I’ve always stuck to. That’s something I’m very proud of.”
Compared to his Honda years, the two seasons with KTM resulted, ultimately, in a lateral move in terms of performance and happiness for Sexton. Can a third team be the answer? He’ll talk about expectations soon, but we probably won’t know the real answer until two years on from now.
