Even though he's not the defending champion here, the 22-year-old Lawrence was the favorite to win in 2026. Now it's hard to say who is the title favorite. We've yet to see Chase Sexton race on his new Kawasaki, and the glimpses we saw of both Cooper Webb and Eli Tomac in the off-season races were mixed. Both are using their time to test their new machines: Webb learning the updated generation YZ450F while Tomac was still adapting to his new KTM ride and team. It also feels like we could see some first-time winners in '26, like Hunter Lawrence and/or Justin Cooper. And even Suzuki must now feel like they have a better shot, as veterans Ken Roczen and Jason Anderson both looked good in the international races. Speaking of that, Husqvarna's Malcolm Stewart also looked great in winning the Paris Supercross.

The 2025 year was an incredibly turbulent year for Team Honda HRC Progressive as a whole. They started with an off night at the Anaheim opener for both Hunter (11th) and Jett (12th), but a 250SX win for Shimoda. But then Jo broke his fingers against a pit board in practice the following week, which he did not really fully recover from until summer. Then both Lawrences went out with injuries before the halfway point in SX. The only high point after that was Chance Hymas' muddy win in Foxborough.

The brothers came back to pretty much dominate outdoors, then they went 1-2 in the 450SMX World Championship, and of course led Australia to a second straight Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations win. The 250 Class saw Hymas dominate at Thunder Valley in Colorado, only to end up with a torn ACL the following week at High Point. Shimoda came on strong to end the summer, then topped Haiden Deegan for the 250SMX title. Jo also had a fantastic showing at the MXoN—on the CRF450R—then he fractured his neck while practicing a month and a half later.

Now, Hunter Lawrence (450SX) and Chance Hymas (250SX West Division) will be the only two factory Honda riders to start the 2026 Monster Energy AMA Supercross campaign. Eric Johnson got to speak to Johnny O'Mara, the Lawrences' coach/trainer, for a Racer X Online interview. Here's a preview of what O'Mara had to say...

“Jett did make a little hiccup in training, which led to a small crash,” explained O’Mara. “That just goes to show you that they’re not bulletproof. Jett pretty much went down without the bike and then landed on his foot. That’s how the incident happened. With the big picture, and if you look at what the injury was, it was a mild dislocation and fracture of the ankle. There was also the injury to the talus and navicular. The navicular is in your wrist, but it’s in your foot also. That definitely required surgery, which he got in Florida. We were happy with the surgeon who did it. We got lucky, you know? We didn’t have our doctors from California there. That’s always a concern for us, but we needed to get it done. We couldn’t get Jett transferred to California because of the nature of the injury. We just needed to take care of it right then and there. It turned out well. He’s resting and recovering. The first couple of weeks will be pretty tough for him. The crash didn’t touch his knee. That’s his bad knee that just got repaired last year. No problem on the knee. It was just Jett’s ankle that took a big blow.”

What is exactly that window or time period for healing?

“I’ve already heard twelve weeks, which is three months non-weight-bearing. I would say it’s probably not that long in our world. He’s so young and strong, and we have a great team around us with rehabilitation. We always feel like we can speed it up a little bit. That’s just me being confident in our team of people that are around us. It’ll be day by day, week by week, month by month. We’ll constantly get X-rays every two to four weeks to see how everything is looking in there. He’s got some hardware in there that instantly gave him some stability with the screws and stuff like that."

Add it all up, and he's hopefully back in late March or early April, so stay tuned.

And our social media friend Josh Gagnon (@AlwaysBelieve331) has his annual countdown up and running; here are this week's entries, as Anaheim is now 15 days away. Look for Josh's page on Instagram and give him a follow...

And don't forget, the hour-long SMX Preview Show special airs this weekend on both NBC and Peacock on Saturday, December 27, at 4 p.m. Eastern/1 p.m. Pacific. Tune in to watch some bench racing on the top athletes ahead of the 2026 season!

How Much Changed? (Jason Weigandt)

Jett Lawrence’s injury certainly changes the face of Monster Energy AMA Supercross for now, but a second question (and one raised by JT and Matthes when they discussed this last weekend) is Jett’s eventual return to racing. With each injury so far, Jett has bounced back in record time, but how many times can an athlete do that before it starts taking a toll? If he ends up missing all of supercross this year, that will mean nearly two full seasons without much supercross at all. That will mean chunks of three whole championships (he missed half of Pro Motocross in 2024, also) with missed time. Does that start to add up just a little bit?

My hope is that Lawrence heals up quickly enough to do something rare, and that’s return for the final few rounds of supercross to get in some laps and some races. Could be helpful to race a few supercross races again instead of doing just four total supercross races over two seasons (again, he only made it through round four of SX this year).

We can assume, because he has done it before, that Jett can just show back up when healthy and win immediately. But how much time can you miss before that gap on the rest of the field starts to diminish? It’s something to keep an eye on, for sure.

Why Not Eli? (Jason Weigandt)

With Lawrence out, every other potential title winner in 450SX just got a boost, because one main player has been removed from the board. I feel like a lot of eyes are going to go to Cooper Webb right now, obviously, because he won the title last year. Of course, Chase Sexton is a great pick. Eli Tomac, though, has to be liking his chances. In Eli’s mind, I’m sure he feels like he had the speed to beat Sexton and Webb last year; he just had inconsistent starts and then a freak injury. If 2025 can run back without that injury, Eli certainly has a shot against those other two. Why not now? I think we all continually brace ourselves for a physical decline from Tomac, who is now 33. I don’t want to assume the bottom is about to drop out. If he can be as good in 2026 as he was in 2025—assuming the KTM works for him—it’s not impossible to think of Eli Tomac winning the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship. That would be wild.

One other rider to think about is Hunter Lawrence. Hunter has more than proven himself outdoors and in SMX on a 450; he had Tomac covered last summer. Can we assume he’s also that good in Supercross? So far, there’s not a lot of data on him because we have only watched a rookie year, and then a second 450SX season cut short by injury. If Hunter is just as good in stadiums as he was on the hybrid SMX playoff tracks, he’s as good as anyone in terms of winning this title. Can he carry the flag as the lone man for both the family and Honda’s HRC Progressive 450 effort? This will be very, very interesting to see.

Pro Perspective (Jason Thomas)

The news that Jett Lawrence will miss the early rounds (at minimum) of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross came as a big shock. The immediate despair for most that a superstar was already out was soon replaced with questions as to what it means for the championship. Most, including myself, had Jett as the favorite to win his second 450SX title. Nothing was certain, of course, but it felt like he was on most minds as the guy to beat. With his chances erased, most will now believe this to be wide open. Sexton, Webb, and Tomac will be the names immediately mentioned, with Hunter Lawrence, Ken Roczen, Justin Cooper, and others lurking as dark horses. The only silver lining of Jett going down is that there is no more favorite to win. I could make a strong case for many to take this title. I couldn't do that with Jett in the mix. It simply changes the math for this championship, regardless of how you feel about him or any other rider for that matter.

For the contenders, some would likely tell you that it doesn't change much. Others would tell you that it changes everything. To me, that's simply who is being more honest with themselves. Not having to beat the guy who's won most of the races he's entered in the last few years has to have an impact on the championship. With that in mind, I would guess this week has been a bit more frantic than it might have been otherwise. There is a sense of urgency now that was likely there but less prominent. Most will sense the door being more open than it was. Championships are incredibly hard to win, and some years they are less likely than others simply due to circumstances, regardless of how your form may be. The championship formula just changed for 2026, and everyone fancying their chances is certainly thinking a bit differently than they were a few short days ago. Jett is a superstar and will be missed, but it's also difficult to think this championship didn't become more interesting in the wake of his injury.

"It simply changes the math for this championship, regardless of how you feel about him or any other rider for that matter." - Jason Thomas

Hunter? (Matthes)

Something I was thinking about in terms of the now wide-open 2026 450SX title is Hunter Lawrence. Like mentioned above, I think his brother was the favorite for everyone (and for good reason), but I would think the betting odds are pretty even for Chase Sexton, Cooper Webb, and Eli Tomac, right? One wild card is for sure Hunter Lawrence who, outdoors at least, has shown to be as good as Sexton and Tomac and better than Webb. The thing is, his two 450SX seasons so far have seen him get hurt (2024 only a few races but that was his rookie year) and for him to get the title this year, that would mean he'd have to win his first career 450SX. And I was thinking, that's pretty rare to win your first race AND the title the same year, right? I was thinking the only guys to recently do that was his brother Jett and Ryan Dungey in 2010.

I asked PulpMX’s own MX Reference if he could supply me with a list of riders to win their first 450SX race and the title and, yup, I was right about Jett and Dungey but also, forgot about Cooper Webb in 2019. Before that, it was the King himself, Jeremy McGrath, in 1993 but to me, that's a totally different era than now.

So, if Hunter can do this, and to me he’s right in the mix, it will be just the 13th time in 50+ years that the feat will have been done. But hey, at least he can just ask his brother about it, right?

Here's the list of 450SX riders to win their first career race and the title in the same year:

Year, Rider
1974 Pierre Karsmakers
1975 Jimmy Ellis
1976 Jim Weinert
1977 Bob Hannah
1982 Donnie Hansen
1983 David Bailey
1984 Johnny O'Mara
1989 Jeff Stanton
1993 Jeremy McGrath
2010 Ryan Dungey
2019 Cooper Webb
2024 Jett Lawrence

California Rains (Keefer)

I don't have much this week so I will go all weather man on you right here! This week California had some torrential/record rainfall with Orange County getting almost 4 inches of rain in nearly 24 hours. To some of you east coasters that may seem like just another storm but Southern California is not really equipped to take on that much water at one time. This leaves me to which could be the softest we have seen an A1 in quite sometime. With more rain incoming next week, this could make A1 some of the best conditions we have seen. Yes, the dirt is covered and stored by Dirt Wurx but it doesn't completely just lay there dry and covered up from the elements. All of this rain here in So. Cal has forced factory teams (that still ride here in So. Cal) to go north to practice. Carson Mumford's place up near Adelanto, California has been purchased by another amateur moto family and they have a couple SX tracks that hold water well. It's not uncommon to see factory teams and riders up in the high desert for some SX training. Sunfair 42 in Joshua Tree also has a SX track that holds water better than the lower lands of San Bernardino/Riverside County where the factory SX tracks are placed. All of this weather can impact testing as well as Florida-placed riders that were headed to California for some testing before A1. Some of that travel may be pushed back a bit and those finalized hard pack "west coast" settings might have to wait. That could make a difference for those riders like Cooper Webb and Justin Cooper since their 2026 Yamaha YZ450F chassis has changed some. All of this just allows for more build up to the 2026 Monster Energy Supercross opener January 10th. 

Hey, Watch It! 

Check out this SMX Insider interview Jason Weigandt did with Ezra Lusk, AMA rider representative, about changes to the 2026 AMA Supercross rulebook. Lusk notes the changes to the late-race red flag/staggered restart rule AND the all-new license penalty point system that is now in place for 2026.

Here is Weege and Matthes and JT with episode two of the 2026 Monster Energy Supercross Preview Shows:

5 Questions with Haiden Deegan and his mechanic Brent Duffe:

Here is the Beta team intro, featuring Benny Bloss and Mitchell Oldenburg:

And here is a look at the Red Bull KTM team intro:

And here's the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna intro:

The AMA Arenacross Championship Series is back up and running with their second round in Boise, Idaho last weekend:

Head-Scratching Headline/s of the Week 

"Bears WR DJ Moore’s cheese grater hat steals show after beating Packers"—Yahoo Sports

"Chiefs lose another quarterback to torn ACL in loss to Titans"—Yahoo Sports
If so, it would be two straight games with a Chiefs QB going down with a torn ACL...

"Last US cents sold at auction for $16.76 million were worth a pretty penny" - AP

“Senator Offers Holiday Wishes While Sitting Next to Taxidermied Alligator: ‘You Can Find God’s Love Everywhere’”—MediaLite 

Random Notes

VIP tickets are now on sale for the 2026 Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations in Ernée.

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