Unadilla this weekend saw another day of great weather and some wild racing. The track has come a long way from my first days there, but it’s also lost a lot of its character over the years. Thankfully, it’s added some good dirt back in though!
There are now just two rounds of Pro Motocross left. Just last week on one of my shows, I said the odds are highly in favor of the Lawrence brothers going one and two in some order in the remaining motos. After all, out of the 32 motos the brothers had run up until Unadilla, they had gone 1-2 in 24 of them. Who could blame me?
And then we see Hunter Lawrence crash out in moto two, Jett grabs the points lead and Bob’s your uncle. Life comes at you pretty fast huh? We saw in SLC that Jorge Prado put some serious heat on Hunter and shortly after that, H-Law went down. He denied it had anything to do with the KTM rider being right there and hey, what do you know? At Unadilla Prado had passed Hunter shortly before Lawrence crashed at the top of Screw U.
We’ll never know if Hunter was pushing it, seeing those two points slip away after a fantastic first moto win. Hunter will never admit that he was out of his comfort zone, so we’re left to wonder. I do know this though; that’s about the worst place a rider can crash at Unadilla.
The second moto was hard packed, it had crusty deep ruts and Hunter didn’t look nearly as good in the second moto up until he crashed. And he had the scoop tire on as he lost the rear and got pitched over the front. To me, it was a combination of Prado being that good, the track being that bad and using a scoop tire on it. Bad day for Hunter Lawrence.
But hey, if he wins the last four motos of the year, he wins the title. So, it’s right there in front of him and when you look at moto one or, his whole season really, he can do this. Not gonna be easy against the alien that is Jett Lawrence but it’s not impossible.
Improbable? Yes.
Let's say Hunter now gets second in the series. Weege was saying that the SMX stats guy figured out that only three times in the sports history has a rider gotten second in the premier class in both SX and MX in the same year. Ouch. That's not a club Hunter wants to join.
Jett’s first moto charge after that fall trying to avoid Haiden Deegan showed his usual jaw dropping bit of riding. he Going 3-4 seconds faster than everyone (except his brother) coming from fifth to second. When the kid needs it, he can dig deep and get that speed.
You would think, based on his results this year and what he’s told us, a track like Unadilla would be kryptonite to Jett. Deep ruts, hooked ruts, some slow speed turns, tracks like Pala, High Point, Red Bud have given him issues with the ankle. But to me, Unadilla he looked great. Maybe the two weeks off helped him a bit plus, you know, the whole passage of time thing. Great moto for Jett!
Jorge Prado was great, and much better than the last few races. He mentioned some bike settings being the main reason, but I’ve been led to believe that it wasn’t some massive thing that KTM did. This was Prado’s best race since the opener, he passed Hunter, he kept Jett honest in the second moto. In the first moto he hung around like Teddy KGB. Great ride!
I tend to think it was more of a European track like Unadilla that helped him do this, but we’ll see this weekend at Budds I suppose. Prado’s been very good this motocross season but to me, he was more impressive in SX which is a real brain twister.
Haiden Deegan’s 450MX rookie year has been good, take away all the shit he says, writes on t-shirts, etc. and he’s been good. It’s not anywhere near Carmichael or Jett’s rookie season but he’s been on the podium a bunch. He’ll get better. I was thinking though that he hasn’t really gotten any closer to whatever Lawrence wins the moto. Here is his position to first through the nine races this year:
Haiden Deegan's Average Finishing Gap From First Place
| Average gap to first: | 30.807 |
| Moto 1 Average | 42.862 |
| Moto 2 Average | 18.751 |
Haiden Deegan's Finishing Gap From First Place by Race
| Race | Finish |
| Fox Raceway Moto 1 | 20.547 |
| Fox Raceway Moto 2 | 15.494 |
| Hangtown Moto 1 | 16.3 |
| Hangtown Moto 2 | 19.294 |
| Thunder Valley Moto 1 | 20.178 |
| Thunder Valley Moto 2 | 32.072 |
| High Point Moto 1 | 18.729 |
| High Point Moto 2 | 8.029 |
| Red Bud Moto 1 | 125.031 |
| Red Bud Moto 2 | 19.343 |
| Southwick Moto 1 | 20.121 |
| Southwick Moto 2 | 3.874 |
| Spring Creek Moto 1 | 53.303 |
| Spring Creek Moto 2 | 15.456 |
| Washougal Moto 1 | 73.362 |
| Washougal Moto 2 | 18.422 |
| Unadilla Moto 1 | 38.188 |
| Unadilla Moto 2 | 36.775 |
Few outliers in there with RedBud/Washougal being first turn crashes and down a long time but that 30 second average is a lot when you think about it. Still, a good season for Deegs and he’ll be better but in case you're locked into a bar argument with a Deegan fan, here you go, you can use these numbers. Thanks to MX Reference for the work!
Was that the best moto of Levi Kitchen’s career? I mean, there’s a few great rides that stand out but wow, Unadilla moto 1 was something else. Sixth to first and pulling away at that. After two weeks off, Kitch rebounded with speed we’ve not seen for a while and showed he’s not going to let kid Davies just roll on by with this title. Second moto we all saw what happened there, another Star Yamaha rider did something goofy (not saying on purpose) and affected his race. His last to 6th was awesome but he still lost points at the end of the day.
At least he can hang his hat that his speed came back. That’s something right? Here’s the thing though, his starts still aren’t awesome and Budds this weekend is a start dependent track. Soooo, yeah, Levi needs to figure something out because one thing I can almost guarantee is that Cole Davies will be somewhere toward the front rounding the first turn.
You know, last season we talked about how Garrett Marchbanks was this absolute monster in passing riders for PC Kawi. G would inevitably get a garbage start and have to rip by guys by seemingly never letting off the throttle while ripping every outside berm.
Well, I asked our guy MX Reference for Levi’s passing stats from this summer compared to G’s last summer:
Through 9 Rounds from the holeshot:
Kitchen 2026: +174
Marchbanks 2025: +210
Marchbanks finished last year at +266.
So as good as Kitch has been in passing guys, Marchbanks was still better!
I think that when it’s your year, it’s your year and we might have seen a prime example of that from Cole Davies at ‘Dilla. He crashed hard in practice and looked off in the first moto. Kitchen got him and so did Chance Hymas but then Hymas had a crash after catching and passing him. Then you had the Kitchen second moto thing. Davies wins again and I would bet it’s not a day where he felt really that good.
One point back of Levi with four motos to go is a good spot for him and the Star Yamaha team I would think.
Some other news and notes:
-Marchbanks was great again. 13 riders passed in moto 1, 18 passed in moto 2 and he ends up with 5-4 on the day. Great day for Marchbanks and he continues to impress. Especially leaving Washougal in a sling!
-Going 10-9 for seventh(!!) OA was Jed Beaton the MX1 champion from Australia. He was as privateer as it gets so this was a pretty impressive showing for Beaton. The series here has had some real wildcards in it this year, pretty cool!
-Okay so this was better than Washougal for Eli Tomac but still…IDK man. Garbage start for him in moto two but 14th was the best he could move up to doesn’t say a lot. The first moto was…okay considering where he started. I’m telling you man, I’m not ready for ET to be this off his usual pace.
-8-5 on the day for Kiwi kid Brodie Connolly which was by far his best day in the USA. He’s raced here a few times before but never been this good…not even close! So not sure what switch was flipped or by who but cool deal for him and the Quad Lock Honda guys.
-Remember when factory riders would get hurt in the nationals and that was it, we’d never see them again? Ahhhh, the good ‘ol days! The SMX playoffs have helped that out a ton and so Aaron Plessinger and Malcolm Stewart both made their returns this weekend. That’s where the fun stopped for these guys. AP had two bike induced DNF’s and Mookie went 23-16.
-But Malcolm was smiling when I saw that ISRT’s Mark Fineis got a selfie with him on the starting line (?!?) before moto two. Mark is an interesting dude, as anyone who has seen his interviews this summer. He was on PulpMX Show Monday night and told us about coming from dead last to 21st in the first moto and then he ripped a start and got fifth in the second moto! So, if you’re keeping track, Mark’s gotten a sixth, a fifth, and an 11th this summer basically out of nowhere. Any chance Monster Kawi trades our Corndog for Mark seeing as how his home race at Ironman is coming up?
-What about Team USA you ask? Well, yeah, it’s a whole thing. The team is looking like it will be Haiden Deegan, Justin Cooper and Levi Kitchen but the costs are higher than usual this year because Star Yamaha is asking for its usual fee for overseas races which is 25K a bike. This is something they’ve asked for if their riders who want to go to Paris or WSX or whatever, but they’ve not asked it from Team USA in the past. So that’s 50K and then there’s Deegan and his rumored asks for bonus money as well. The AMA doesn’t have this kind of money, I don’t know where it’s going to come from, but I imagine between Monster, Yamaha and whomever else they’ll work it out.
It’s going to be a hell of an ask for USA to win this year in France but to me, a MXDN without Team USA is really not much more than a glorified MXGP. Then when I go see the amount of money InFront is making from an event like this, I think they should help out some countries that actually sell tickets. Because if USA ends up paying teams/riders, the dam will burst and everyone will want some help. The MXDN is expensive, it’s a lot of work and it’s not very easy to do. But you now fans are gonna show up to see Deegan race, if he does. The American-baed riders have value here.
Thanks for reading OBS, we’re onto Budds Creek everyone! Should be an exciting race although the weather looks a little sketchy. Email me at matthes@racerxonline.com if you want to chat about this race or anything else.
