With two rookie champions, the new SuperMotocross World Championship fueled by Monster Energy ushered in a new era for the sport in more ways than one.

WORDS: JASON WEIGANDT
PHOTOS: ALIGN MEDIA

To the victor goes the spoils, and also the scrutiny. Jett Lawrence and Haiden Deegan found themselves deep within the fray in Los Angeles, Jett dealing with non-stop questions about his controversial “wave around” to Ken Roczen the previous weekend in Chicagoland. As for Deegan, he is no stranger to attention, saying, “I grew up, since I came out of the hatch, with a camera there. I’m just used to it.” But, after his first-moto performance in the Coliseum, where he went back from second to fifth and lost valuable ground to title-rival Jo Shimoda, he wanted no part of the TV cameras and interview request in the pits. He was in a zone of focus, frustration and disappointment, and he literally could not speak. That’s big stuff, but for both riders, such drama really doesn’t seem to matter that much. In the end what matters is performance. They had to perform when it counted, and when it did count, they did perform, emerging as the first-ever champions of the new SuperMotocross [SMX] World Championship format. While these kids are highly marketable, the marketing only works when it can attach itself to results.
    The whole new SMX thing was the same. You could talk about it and hype it all year, but people had to actually see it to know if this was for real. Indeed, it was.