A week ago, the 250SX East Division opener in Arlington sparked controversy when race leader Jo Shimoda rolled some jumps that he didn’t have to roll while leading the race—he thought the red lights were telling him to roll, but they were just warning lights. The AMA has now switched those warnings lights to yellow, from red, but that’s still not making folks like Jo, or his Honda bosses, or even the race fans, happy. For Pierce Brown, who won the race last week, he’s just tried to ignore it all.
“I tried not to think or look into the fan response,” said Brown. “There was a lot of unhappy people with the red light situation last weekend, but a lot of people were stoked [I got a win], too. It's one of those things, if you look into the comment section, it could get your head spinning. So, I try not to do that and just do my thing. We're going to keep doing me, and nothing else will change.”
For Brown, the challenge is to fight for a title over a full season for the first time in his career. To that end, he wasn’t blazing fast in Daytona, but was happy to salvage a third and retain the points lead.
“A podium was honestly my goal coming into the weekend,” he said. “It was one of those tracks in the main I struggled with. I felt great all day. Then in the main, as the track started breaking down, I kind of was all over the place with line choices and everything. Overall, I'm more than happy to walk away with the podium. Stacking the momentum from last weekend, too, feels really good.”
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Even when he won last weekend, Brown made it clear that his real goal this year is to avoid the bad races more than focus on celebrating the good ones. Just stay consistent. He did that at Daytona. Consider that Drew Adams and Jo Shimoda crashed while running ahead of him. Pierce took what he could get.
“I rode around fifth for most of the race," he said. "Then a bunch of guys just started making mistakes, and I was there to capitalize, so it made it easy on me. But then, again, you have to be there, and that was the name of the game tonight. I feel like that's going to be really crucial next weekend, too, with the Triple Crown. Overall, I think my head's in a good spot. Bike's good, body's good, and I'm excited.”
One rider who will be tough to contend with is his teammate Cole Davies, who once again blew minds with outstanding speed. The start did him in again, though.
“I would say I rode good. I'm not 100 percent happy with the placing, but obviously I rode good,” Davies said. “I had good speed, but I didn't have a good start, and I need to figure that out. I would say my starts were very good last year. I had a lot of good starts, but this year, I guess, they're just not as good. So I just need to find what I was kind of doing last year and repeat that, and it should be good.”
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With eye-opening whoop speed, Davies could hammer next weekend at Indy, where he was crazy fast in the rutted whoops last year. The young New Zealander is not short on confidence.
“If I ride like I know I can, I don't feel like anyone can touch me,” Davies said. "I just need to figure out these starts, and I'll be away.”
For the first time in 2026, a 250SX race has been won by someone not riding a Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing machine. Seth Hammaker got the W at Daytona on his Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki, not a surprise considering he was a pre-season favorite to win races. The Yamaha YZ250F riders are still right in the hunt, though. Two different approaches here. The more veteran Brown is playing the long game and focused on consistency, Davies is showing incredible all-out speed and is a good start away from being able to turn that into a win.
“Yeah, it's going to be another hectic weekend, for sure,” says Brown. “Triple Crown always gets pretty gnarly. So that's going to be another one you got to be in it. Three starts is going to be the main goal, so we're going to work on that this week for next weekend. Honestly, I think we're in a good spot with the bike, the team. So there's not going to be much change going on this week. It'll just be doing the laps and staying fresh.”
