Just three years ago Cole Davies was a 15-year-old from New Zealand trying his hand at SMX Next. Now, he is the 2026 Monster Energy AMA Supercross 250SX East Division Champion, wrapping up the title a round early in just his second season as a professional. And Philadelphia may be quickly becoming his favorite city to race.
As a rookie last year, Cole won his second ever supercross in Philly as a West Division rider at the East/West Showdown. And on Saturday in Philly, Davies needed to get four points on closest competitor Seth Hammaker. This would be a hard enough task in the dry, but as the skies opened up and the rain came down it became even more difficult to predict how the night would go. Just the weekend before Davies seemed to struggle in the slick conditions in Cleveland (though thanks to the Triple Crown format was still able to make up points on Hammaker). When Hammaker pulled the holeshot in Philly it looked like he was going to give Cole all he could handle until he went down in the first rhythm section. Davies clipped Hammaker's bike but narrowly avoided going down! He easily rode to the win. Hammaker rode an incredible race to get back to third, but it was not enough to stop Davies from clinching.
Davies spoke on what this championship means to him and his family, and everything that went into it in the post-race media scrum.
“It means a lot to me," Davies said on his first professional title. "I’ve spent my whole life coming towards this moment. All the sacrifices my family has made to get me here, it’s all paid off. I’m stoked; this means everything to me.”
Davies continued speaking on not just the work, but the stress involved in a championship season: “It’s been a stressful one, but I’m good now. It’s been a long season and to get it done now, I’m stoked. I’m chilling.”
When it comes to racing in the United States of America, the American dream is still very much alive. But moving here and becoming champion is not something that happens by chance. As Davies explained it was the plan all along.
“Four or five years ago now, we sat in Ben Townley’s living room and set out a plan on what we are going to do and how we are going to get here and we’ve followed that step by step and what we’ve planned out has happened exactly," he said. "I’m just stoked, everything has worked out, all the hard work and sacrifices have paid off.”
With a huge weight off of his shoulders, Monday it will be back to business as usual, this time focusing on the AMA Pro Motocross Championship which starts on May 30. And when asked if he plans on proving the East Division is better than his teammate, and 250SX West Division Champion Haiden Deegan, come Salt Lake City at the finale and last East/West showdown Davies said he didn't care.
“I don’t really care," Davies said. "As 250 East champ I don’t really care. It’ll be what it is, when we go there it might be a battle, it might not. I’m gonna celebrate this, this means everything to me. But it’s nice to wrap it up early, I’ll be able to do some testing on outdoors and focus on outdoors a lot more now instead of going to the last round focusing, I can prepare for outdoors now.”
Now with a 250SX championship in only his second try, Davies joins others who were able to do so like Cooper Webb, Travis Pastrana, Ricky Carmichael, and James Stewart. That is a fine list to be on. In comparison, Jeremy McGrath, Jett Lawrence and Haiden Deegan all took three tries before they won their first title. Whatever the future holds for Davies, you can bet he is already working on the plan.
