In the 250 class, Haiden Deegan was doing Deegan things in San Diego, rebounding quickly from a less-than-expected fourth at A1, and stirring the pot with a contact pass on his teammate Max Anstie for the win, then giving the public enough good sound bites post-race to satisfy a week of waiting for A2. Max also supplied some good fodder with his press words.

While most of the rest of the country braces for "Snowmageddon" or whatever they are calling the winter storm that is expected to hammer them, it rained here in SoCal yesterday, and the track got some serious moisture in it. The Dirt Wurx crew did not cover the track, so it looks a little mushy and soft this morning, but the sun and wind will help. I'm actually at the stadium as we have a couple of big meetings, the first with the American Motocross amateur promoters, the second with the SMX steering committee, which includes representatives of all of the OEMs, as well as the AMA, AMA Pro Racing, FELD Motor Sports, and MX Sports. I'm sure we will be discussing track design concepts, sound issues and penalties, and the insurance crunch that has become an existential threat to the whole sport.

Speaking of, the lawsuit in Florida between the badly injured KTM rider Brian Moreau of France finally ended last week after we posted Racerhead. In case you forgot about it, Moreau was the rider who crashed hard one lap into his professional supercross career at the 2020 Tampa Supercross. Moreau was 18 when he crashed headfirst into a jump early in the first practice of the 250SX East Division opener. The Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull KTM rider suffered a broken neck and later sued Feld and the Alpinestars Mobile Medics team for the way they lifted him off the track. The jury decided that two of the volunteer medics were "grossly negligent" in how they lifted him off the track, but that the negligence did not cause the broken neck; rather, the crash itself did. If you saw the helmet after the crash, which was compromised on impact, driving the helmet camera he was wearing into the shell of the helmet, you would probably come to the same conclusion as the 12 jurors. This crash, as well as what happened to F1 driver Michael Schumacher years earlier in a skiing accident, were among the factors that led to the banning of helmet-mounted cameras in SMX. The injury was devastating for Brian and his family, as well as his team and the sport in general. I feel very bad for Brian, though I never got to actually meet him before his crash, and hope for the best for him in the years to come.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, don’t forget that practice starts at 9 a.m. locally, Race Day Live starts at 10 a.m., and the evening show starts at 4:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. back east). And our own Jason Weigandt will be in the booth with Ricky Carmichael. Here’s hoping for a great and safe race tomorrow.

PRO PERSPECTIVE (Thomas)

Levi Kitchen and Chase Sexton both feel like they're in similar positions. Both are capable of winning, both are considered championship contenders by most, and both have gotten off to rocky starts in 2026. In both cases, it's not the riding per se; it's the execution and detail. Both riders crashed in the first turn of A1, both riders had incidents at the start of San Diego—Kitchen crashed, Sexton hit the gate—and both Kawasaki riders put in some of the best laps of both main events thus far. And both finished fourth, which is not what either wanted. It's as if they are taking cues from each other, practice partners mimicking their own issues on race day. While I'm too pragmatic to think it's anything other than coincidence, it is pretty interesting to see how similar their seasons have gone. Further, Sexton's setup for San Diego was a direct reflection of Kitchen's Pro Circuit setup. Strange times.

For both, this weekend is critical. Kitchen's deficit is smaller (nine points) than Sexton's, but he's also in a much shorter series. Both riders need to turn the tide of momentum back in their direction. If they continue to give away points to the likes of Deegan and Anstie, Tomac and Roczen, they might find themselves in a seemingly inescapable hole before we head east of the Mississippi for the first time. As the cliché goes, it's impossible to win the championship in the first few rounds, but it is certainly possible to lose it. For the boys in green, they better hope their similarities involve champagne sooner rather than later.

BLU CRU (Matthes)

Through two rounds, the Blu Cru guys, defending champ Cooper Webb and Justin Cooper, haven't gotten the results they thought they would, that's for sure. Webb told us before A1 how he had gone back to his 2025 chassis once Jett Lawrence got hurt because it was what he had known. And we all thought J-Coop would take another step closer to the front, right? Well, after San Diego, both riders had planned to stay in SoCal all week, but someone made a call that everyone was to head back to home base in Florida for some testing. Imagine that process after the main on Saturday night?

Webb's had good speed but has crashed in both mains (one of them Chase Sexton helped out) and Cooper's starts have not been very good (he also crashed at A1). I asked someone about #32's starts, and they told me they tried something this week to help him, and we'll see if that worked or not. Either way, I read that after two races, Webb's points deficit is the biggest it's been in any of his title years, and so it'll be interesting to see if either guy can turn this thing around. It's still early, but it gets late fast.

DROOPY (Matthes)

I did a podcast this week with Honda HRC Progressive's Shane Drew, who is the crew chief for the 250 side of things over there. It's a pretty interesting listen as Shane and I deep dive into his expertise in chassis work, debate aluminum versus steel frames, how big is too big when it comes to the fork sizes we're seeing out there, and more. Drew was a mechanic for riders like Seb Tortelli and Mike LaRocco, then became head of chassis at HRC, moved to factory Yamaha and Team TwoTwo for a bit before coming back to Honda. I've known him since I was a kid and he was Canadian National #6 back in the day, so it was interesting to talk to him about those days too. Oh, and we also talked about Chance Hymas and Jo Shimoda as well. Anyway, I found it an interesting chat, so here it is.

SMX Next (Keefer)

Since I am deep into this amateur thing with my son, I've seen a lot of these kids ride as well as get geared up for this weekend's SMX Next race at A2. Some riders to watch out for would be Monster Energy Star Racing Yamaha's Caden Dudney and Kayden Minear, Team Green's Vincent Wey and Kade Johnson, Team Triumph's Deacon Denno, and ClubMX's Ryder Malinoski (who just signed a development deal that will take him to the pro team after Loretta Lynn's), and more. I feel like this SMX Next Class of 2026 is one of the deepest we've seen. And that's not counting a couple of notable riders that will not be racing: Carson Wood and Tiger Wood. Carson is getting slow-cooked by the team and could be in at Houston or Daytona. As for Tiger, he is recovering from an injury. You can also bet a couple of these kids will be graduating from SMX Next to the professional 250 SX East Division rounds coming up—I could see Deacon going East as well as riders like Dudney and Minear. Look for a good battle this weekend as these kids will have some top ten overall times when comparing them to the 250 SX West guys. Supercross skills are a premium when it comes to landing a spot on a factory team, so look for these top kids to be as good as the factory 250 West riders Saturday night.

Almost Another Record by One Day (DC)

When Anstie won Anaheim, he surpassed John Dowd as the oldest 125/250SX winner by one day. Anstie was 32 years, eight months, and 16 days old when he won A1. Back in 1998 at the Dallas 125SX, Dowd was 32 years, eight months, and 15 days old. Well, at the San Diego SX this past weekend, Anstie was about to break another record that Dowd held by one day—the oldest 125/250SX podium finisher. Back in '98, one week after Dallas, Dowd finished second to Ricky Carmichael at the Las Vegas 125 East/West Shootout, his last podium in that class in SX racing. Well, last weekend in San Diego, Anstie was about to beat him by a single day again, only to tangle with his teammate Haiden Deegan as they battled for the lead. Anstie went down and dropped back, ultimately finishing fifth. He will almost certainly reach the podium again this year, and when he does, that will make him the oldest 250SX podium finisher ever, and it won't be by just a day either!

#61 Correction (DC)

Time for some clean-up in the trivia aisle. In last week's Racerhead, I mentioned that by winning the Anaheim 250SX opener, the #61 Yamaha Star Racing YZ250F that Max Anstie rode had become the first bike in the history of SX and MX to win a race while wearing #61. Unfortunately, I overlooked the 2009 win of our own contributor Blake Wharton, who topped the "SX Lites" class at the '09 St. Louis SX while riding the #61 GEICO Honda! Sorry to both Max and especially Blake for that oversight. If you're keeping score at home, the lowest number to never win remains #54.

Bobby Bonds (DC)

The latest issue of Racer X Magazine dropped this week with a big surprise on the cover: playground legend Bobby Bonds. He was the can't-miss kid back in 2000 and '01, and was the focus of a bidding war between Honda and Pro Circuit Kawasaki. He signed with Mitch Payton and promptly went to the front of the field in his second-ever 125 National at Hangtown. But that's where he ran into Grant Langston—literally. At the end of a heated battle for the overall win, Langston, the 125 World Champion who was also racing in just his second pro national, moved over on him on a fast downhill. Bonds' front wheel hit Langston's back wheel as he was braking, and down went 16-year-old Bobby Bonds.

That was as close as Bonds would ever get to a podium, let alone a win. A series of injuries that began as an amateur derailed his potential, and he was not signed by anyone after his two-year Pro Circuit deal ended. He eventually went into WORCS off-road racing and won a championship there, but his motocross career was a disappointment. He ran a track in Bakersfield and worked with fast kids like Stilez Robertson, Jett Reynolds, and Ryder D as they were growing up there. Now he's working in the gas and oil fields, but he still loves moto and watches Saturday with his family, as Weege and Seth Rarick found out with their recent ReRaceables podcast on PulpMX for Hangtown 2001.

So how did he end up on the cover? We had to go to print the week of the Anaheim opener and just had Chase Sexton on the cover, along with recent ones of Hunter Lawrence, Jo Shimoda, Haiden Deegan, etc. But we had no idea who would win A1. So after the podcast dropped, Weege decided to drill down more on Bonds' story for his feature "The Ballad of Bobby Bonds." Recalling that he never got a cover during his racing career, we dug into Simon Cudby's archives and found the photo you see from High Point '01, one week after Hangtown. Why not do a retro cover?!

When Weege sent it to Bonds yesterday, his response alone was worth the risk of running a photo from 25 years ago on our cover:

"I'm dumbfounded, man. I always wanted a cover. I was always hoping that if I won a WORCS race when there wasn't another big race that weekend, I'd get one. Never lined up right. Then I won a championship, and they gave me the little corner quarter cover picture on the front of Cycle News.

"A year or two later, Stilez mopped up at World Mini and got a full cover. There I was, a 28-year-old dude jealous of a 10-year-old kid, lol.

"Never in a million years did I think that at 41 I would somehow get a cover."

Besides Bonds' story, the issue also includes the up-and-down saga that was Team Honda's year in 2025, Kawasaki's rebuild after a difficult '25, a ride around Michigan with some fast company in tour leader Jeff Stanton and guests Mercedes Gonzalez-Natvig and Sarah Whitmore-Smage, and more. Look for it in your mailbox soon.

This Week's Win Ads (DC)

Check out the latest win ads in Cycle News:

Hey, Watch It!

2026 ANAHEIM 1// ALIGN MEDIA

2026 SAN DIEGO SX // ALIGN MEDIA

Introducing MX6 Racing | Supercross Team Introduction

James Stewart: "I Have Never Seen That" - San Diego Rewind

AC & JB Show: "I don't think Haiden CARED!" Talking all things San Diego SX

Daniel Blair: Dangerboy Opens the Door For DIRTY, Prado's REALITY Check, Tomac-Roczen-Hunta SMASH! Supercross 26

Weege Show Wednesday: Eli Era Again, Hunter is Scary Good, Sexton and Webb Reset

Head-Scratching Headline/s of the Week 

“Toronto man accused of posing as pilot to get hundreds of free flights arrested”—Globalnews.ca

“Monkeys are on the loose in St. Louis and AI is complicating efforts to capture them”—AP

Random Notes

"Here Comes Joe Motocross" is now on view! ⁠

Learn how Craig Schulz’s pursuit of motocross racing inspired his father, Charles M. Schulz, to create Snoopy’s alter ego, Joe Motocross.

The 1975 storyline was also incorporated into the Peanuts animated special "You’re a Good Sport, Charlie Brown," featuring the Peanuts gang in a motocross race.⁠

Explore original Peanuts comic strips, vintage merchandise from the Museum’s collection, and more in this new exhibition on view through July 12, 2026. Click here to learn more: https://schulzmuseum.org/joe-motocross

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