In the 250SX West, it's been the Haiden Deegan Show since the second round. After an off-song fourth in the season opener, Deegan got down to business and has now pretty much lapped the field, as he is more than a race ahead of points on his teammate Michael Mosiman in the standings. When the West goes on break next week, I imagine Haiden will be doing some outdoor work on that 450 he will be riding in May—if not sooner.

It's been a wild week for the series itself, as Monster Energy AMA Supercross is rolling into Seattle just days after the Seahawks won the Super Bowl. That was not necessarily great news for the Dirt Wurx/SMX Track Crew, nor the whole Feld Motor Sports team, as the Seahawks decided to have their Super Bowl celebration with their fans inside Lumen Field on Wednesday morning, which meant that the event production team and track crew could not start work on the buildout until Wednesday afternoon. That cut their usual window in half, which made for a couple of very long days and nights. (And if you were creeping on them with this Fox 13 Seattle live camera like I was, you know they've been hustling. Add in the weather challenges that always pop up in Seattle, whether the race is in April, March, or even February like it is this year—blame the upcoming FIFA World Cup for the strange date—and it's been a challenging couple of days down on the stadium floor. Here's hoping for another great race tomorrow for a series that's been compelling and entertaining from the start. You can read more about the track build here.

One thing to recall heading into this weekend: Cooper Webb and Chase Sexton battled down to the checkered flag in Lumen Field both in 2024 and 2025. Jason Weigandt covered those battles—and much more—on his Wednesday Weege Show, which you can check out below.

Throwback to the 2025 Seattle SX...

Larry Brooks (DC)

As I mentioned above, Larry Brooks is undergoing treatment for Stage 2 colon cancer. I've known Larry since we raced minicycles together a time or two, and then we both made our 125 Supercross debuts together at the '85 Atlanta round at the old Fulton County Stadium—we collided in our heat race; I didn't qualify, but he somehow still got in and finished the main event in second. From there, he would enjoy a very long and successful career, later becoming a team manager, where he enjoyed even more success. He's a moto man to the core, and I have no doubt he will overcome this unexpected obstacle. He's got a great team around him, and they're going to give him every ounce of support they have, just as he's done for them.

The HEP Motorsports Suzuki team posted this late last Friday night before the Glendale race:

After the emotional win, Ken Roczen was asked about Larry.

"He's really the only team manager that I've ever had that when we go down to the line, he's right there," added Roczen. "He's right on the start. He doesn't care about being in the manager tower. He actually hates being in the manager tower because he can't really see anything."

Suzuki Strong (Jason Weigandt)

Credit is due to Dustin Pipes' HEP/PMG squad, though, which has been rolling drama-free up the ranks, from a small new team trying to make mains to legit title threat. And on Suzukis! Obviously, adding Ken Roczen and Larry Brooks took the team to a new level in 2023, but Ken is even better now than he was then. Plus, Jason Anderson is also on board and riding well. That's key because I always wondered if maybe Kenny's superhuman talent was making the bike look better than it is. Anderson is the first "other than Ken" guy to do this well on this bike, which proves a lot.

This has been so long in the making that people might forget that Pipes was once just a privateer Suzuki rider trying to make mains. Our guy Steve Matthes likes to say that he connected Pipes with the upper brass when he sent him to a Suzuki media intro event to represent PulpMX. Ironically, the event took place at the old JGR facility in North Carolina, since JGR was the factory Suzuki team at the time. Once Pipes got to meet the bosses, he shot his shot and got the meetings he needed.

"How the team started was, I was sitting at a table with the president of Suzuki, and I said I was going to start a race team, and they were going to support it. He thought I was joking," Pipes explained. "A month later I called him and I said we're doing it. It's funny how it started, and I always thought he would be here, but it took a while because we weren't a billion-dollar corporation. We just had to take some time, work our way through it, and figure out how to get better. But we always thought we would be a winning race team."

JGR was the previous Suzuki factory effort, but as Suzuki continued to scale back support, team owner Coy Gibbs eventually realized this wasn't a tenable situation. When JGR shut down, Pipes took Suzuki's small offer and made the most of it, adding legitimate outside sponsors, then working through various staff, parts, and more to elevate the program. There were some missteps, of course, but that's par for any team on the rise. Adding Brooks before the 2023 season proved to be a brilliant move because soon after, Roczen was in need of a ride, and the rest is history. Dustin Pipes joins that small group of ex-racers to start his own team and eventually get factory support, win races, and compete for titles.

Pipes' team has risen during a time of little development from Suzuki. Now we've started to see and hear whispers of Suzuki of Japan sending engineers to America to check on the program. Other production Suzuki products, like street and dual sport, are starting to see updates and improvements. There are signs of life. For this Suzuki race team, the best could be yet to come.

Pro Perspective (Jason Thomas)

Seattle in February is a wild scenario for Monster Energy AMA Supercross. The upcoming FIFA World Cup caused scheduling headaches for the 2026 series, and this is a prime example. February weather is typically not kind to the PNW, and time will tell how that shakes out on Saturday. To up the ante, the Seahawks decided to win the Super Bowl this year, keeping track crews out of the facility until the celebration finished on Wednesday afternoon. So, let's see... Seattle is always a weather coin flip, seasonality is even worse with February, and time is now a serious issue with the late access. What could go wrong?

In reality, I think we will be fine. The track will get done, albeit with 24-hour shifts taking place. The weather is going to play a role, as rain is likely on Friday, but Saturday is not looking too scary yet. It's going to look and feel like a normal Seattle for the riders and fans alike when the gate drops Saturday evening. What, then, does a normal Seattle entail?

For the riders, it will be soft, rutty, and ever-changing. The race will be more about putting in consistent laps than raw speed. Riders will try to find a good rhythm that they can repeat instead of taking big risks to put in a blistering one-off lap. Lines will change throughout the race, too, so riders need to stay alert and mindful. Tunnel vision is a real thing and can work on hard-packed tracks like Glendale. Seattle will punish that approach as ruts become too deep to use. At best, lap times will rise, and at worst, huge crashes await as footpegs drag and riders go over the bars. In a phrase, riders must always stay situationally aware at Seattle, much more so than a week ago.

PulpMX Show (Matthes)

We had Cole Seely and Kellen Brauer in-studio for the PulpMX Show Monday night and covered a bunch of topics with Ken Roczen, Cooper Webb, Phil Nicoletti, and Rich Simmons. Seely talked to us about riding the Ducati before anyone else last summer and his thoughts on the bike indoors and out. Webb talked about the "code red" after Anaheim 2, where the team went back to Florida to test despite having planned to stay in SoCal. He also said it was not a "code red." Rich Simmons seemed annoyed with Phil, and I tried to get this special adaptor they made for Webb to put the 2025 Brembo clutch assembly on the 2026 YZ450F motor. Hopefully, we badgered him enough to make that happen for us.

A lot of my shows this week, we talked about Chase Sexton, including asking Roczen whether he was more surprised by Eli Tomac's performance or Chase Sexton's riding this season. Sexton dominated the Fly Racing Moto: 60 Show with Zach Osborne, and then Daniel Blair and I talked about it as well.

Like, he's got one podium through five races, but it was a win. Yes, he's gotten bad starts, but this weekend might have been his worst yet. Bad start, not really fast in qualifying or in the main once he got going, and yeah, Osborne said it's panic button time. I'm not there yet, but Zach had been watching Chase ride at Jack Chambers' place in the off-season and was very impressed with what he saw. It's been weird for sure; some adjustment period is fine for the bike, but Chase and Kawasaki have to be a bit disappointed with the start so far.

As I wrote in OBS, I'm still on Sexton Island—he's too good to not start winning soon, and I see those people swimming off. We will NOT be letting you people back on, BTW.

Also, not saying anything here, but have you seen how good that KTM looks with Jorge Prado?

Starts Starts Starts (Keefer)

Starts were on the menu for Sexton and Kitchen this week! We have heard Levi say that basically he threw everything away that he knows about starts and took in what Roczen had to say regarding starting procedures. I also watched a video of Levi starting from Glendale that surfaced, which shows his left foot coming off of his pegs, which led to a late third gear shift. These kinds of small errors after the gate drop could be why Levi is missing this piece of the puzzle. We know he has the speed to run with Deegs, but these mistakes at the beginning of the race are what is keeping him off the top of the step. He knows this; we know this, but to me, there have been more bad starts than good ones, which is crazy to me knowing how good that Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki KX250 is!

I guess you could copy and paste the same thing I said about Levi too, but to me, it just looks like Chase is getting pulled the first 50 feet off the gate. The other riders next to him get a half wheel on him, then he gets boxed out. A seventh in Glendale meant more testing this week in California but look for Chase to get back to Florida life after Seattle. It just baffles me how he and his bike can be so good, then on another week, he is so far off. I also understand that anyone who wins could get a seventh the next week due to the fact that the field is so deep, but the way the seventh unfolded looked to me like bike setup. This isn't a "Kawasaki isn't good" debate but maybe more like he needs to get back to Florida (much like Webb did) to get back to center. Sometimes all it takes is being back home and in HIS routine to make it better. Rain is scheduled for this Saturday night in Seattle, so look for a better Chase as he is good in muddy conditions.

THE DOGGER (Matthes)

I caught up with '85 125 National Champion, two-time USGP winner, two-time MXDN Champion, AMA HOF'er Ron Lechien this week on the One on One Podcast. I always like talking to Dogger about stuff; he'd been to three rounds of SX to start the year, so we rapped about that, his role at Maxima Oils and how the company is doing, how he's doing with his dad's passing a couple of years ago, and then I tried to come up with questions for him that I've never asked him before. Have a listen HERE on PulpMX.com.

"Tennnnnnnn Seconds!" (Mitch Kendra)

This weekend, the Progressive Grand National Cross Country (GNCC Racing) Series starts with the Big Buck GNCC in Union, South Carolina. Following an exciting 2025 bike championship between Ben Kelley and XC2 rider Grant Davis that came down to the final round, there is a lot of hype for the 2026 season. Kelley returns with the #1 plate on his bike as Davis is now running the #2 for ‘26. Add in Liam Draper, Mike Witkowski, Jordan Ashburn, Craig Delong, Johnn Girroir, Steward Baylor Jr., Kailub Russell, Cody Barnes, Gus Riordan, Josh Toth, Grant Baylor, and more, there are a lot of talented riders capable of landing on the podium this year. Last year at the Big Buck GNCC, Nick “T-Rex” DeFeo won the season opener overall from the XC2 class, in a season where we saw eight different overall winners in the 13 rounds. The Big Buck GNCC will have both Saturday’s pro ATVs (1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST) and Sunday’s pro bikes (1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST) broadcasted live by the RacerTV crew. Tune in!

New Look Honda MXGP (Mitch Kendra)

The ’26 FIM Motocross World Championship (MXGP) season is less than a month away and some riders started to get ready for the season by racing the Italian International Championship recently. Travis Denlicki wrote a full recap earlier this week from the Mantova, Italy, second round.

But today, we got our first look at the brand-new look Honda HRC team. The factory Honda effort added PETRONAS as its title sponsor—becoming Honda HRC PETRONAS—and also added Monster Energy as an energy drink sponsor. It is new for the MXGP Honda team to have a title sponsor AND an energy drink sponsor as Tim Gajser’s Monster Energy livery years ago was a personal deal, not a team deal. But since Monster Energy works with the factory Honda Dakar Rally—the Monster Energy/Honda HRC Rally team—bringing the energy drink on board with the MXGP team as well was not a difficult process.

Add in the addition of both Jeffrey Herlings and Tom Vialle to returning riders Ruben Fernandez and Valerio Lata, the team has an all-new look for this year. You can check out what the four riders had to say at the team intro via a release from Honda this morning.

Weekly Winners (DC)

Ken Roczen's big win in Glendale marked his first of the season, as well as the first for Suzuki. He earned the cover of Cycle News, as well as a Suzuki win ad. Roczen was also the headline in Dunlop's win ad, sharing the page with 250SX winner Haiden Deegan. Roczen also shared an ASV ad with Arizona AX winners Austin Politelli and Dane Morales. Yamaha hooked up Deegan with a fourth straight 250SX West win ad, and he was also featured in a cool FMF ad doing a Nac-Nac with the headline, "Kid Has The Nac." There were some off-road winners last weekend as well, as Nick DeFeo won the opening round of the ANEC Series in South Carolina while Korie Steed topped the Women's Pro class at the same event. And though they did not win in Glendale, Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki's Levi Kitchen and Cameron McAdoo shared the podium in second and third, respectively, and also shared a Maxima ad for their efforts.

Covers Story (DC)

Our March 2026 cover featured Pro Circuit Kawasaki rider Bobby Bonds launching his KX125 way back in 2001. Bonds was featured in Jason Weigandt's engaging article "The Ballad of Bobby Bonds," about the kid's incredible rise and fall 25 years ago. We chose the retro cover because we went to print before the Anaheim SX opener, which made it hard to guess who might be on top of supercross after the first month of the series. Plus, Bonds never got a cover as a young man, and we thought it would be a pleasant surprise for him and his family, which it was. And besides, it's a really cool Simon Cudby photo shot on 35mm film! Cudby took the photo back in 2001 at the High Point National, which was held the week after the '01 Hangtown 125 National, the root of Bonds' story. It looked very familiar to our November 2001 issue's cover shot of Mike Brown. We thought Simon shot them at the same race, but this past week we realized the Brown shot came from a photo shoot Cudby did with Brown at his home track, Muddy Creek in Tennessee. Brown had just won the '01 AMA 125 Pro Motocross Championship after a nail-biting title fight with KTM's Grant Langston, who also featured in Bonds' story.

Thumbing through the old issue with Brown on the cover, it's an incredible illustration of how different the moto industry was back then compared to now. Pro Circuit Kawasaki was still riding KX125 two-strokes, and the team's title sponsor was Chevy Trucks, not Monster Energy—which did not even exist until 2002! Advertisers inside the magazine included No Fear riding gear, One Industries, AXO, Spy, Yamaha of Troy, and the monthly O'Neal girl, wearing a bikini top and race pants pulled down low to reveal a thong. Shoe brands like DC Shoes and Etnies were big in moto, as was 1-800-COLLECT, which featured Jeremy McGrath and actress Alyssa Milano. And it seemed like Travis Pastrana was everywhere, which the then-17-year-old was: Supercross, Pro Motocross, X Games, Gravity Games, Monster Cup. Our Loretta Lynn's '01 coverage included young up-and-comers like James Stewart, the Alessi brothers, Sarah Whitmore, and Eli Tomac—and Eli's dad, John, won the Vet +30 B/C class! And in the 65cc Stock class, Jason Lawrence topped Ryan Villopoto.

Also, Eric Johnson did a feature on Yamaha of Troy's Phil Alderton and his "Fifth Dragon" team, while "MX Geoff" Meyer introduced our readers to an Australian kid who was getting ready to move here and join Yamaha of Troy, "The Talented Mr. Reed." MotoWorld was still on TV, and MotoTalk was the big online forum. The magazine went to print on September 4, one week ahead of what would truly be a world-changing event: the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as well as the hijacking that ended in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It really was a much different world than what we had back then, what was about to change, and what we have right now.

Hey, Watch It!

2026 SMX Feature: Team Honda HRC's Lars Lindstrom

Eli Tomac's quad in qualifying at the Glendale SX.

Seattle SX Injury Report and Track Preview

Head-Scratching Headline/s of the Week 

"So-called ‘manfluencers’ are filming themselves trying to pick up women. Smart glasses are their perfect tool"—CNN

"Animal Wellness Action Applauds Nash County Deputies for Major Cockfighting Bust"—Animal Wellness Action

"Loose cow prompts lockdown at Nebraska school"—UPI

“Love in a cold climate: Winter Olympic village runs out of condoms after three days”—The Guardian

Random Notes