If there were ever a week where you'd want to hit the reset button on this sport, this would be that. Eli Tomac, the Lawrence Brothers, Jorge Prado, and Pierce Brown are all down and out for the season, with the two Star Yamaha riders and Hunter Lawrence incidents happening in Tampa last week. Nevertheless, "we" keep trucking on, and Ford Field, a house of horrors for some over the last few years, played host to the latest round of Monster Energy Supercross.
Daytime Program/Injury Notes:
- Puked up several internal organs when I saw lap times south of 50.000 seconds. What happened to the game I love?
- Vince Friese may be in play as a fill-in HRC rider, according to Daniel Blair (second-hand info). Haven't we suffered enough this month?
- Nate Thrasher broke the middle finger in his right hand earlier in the week but would race it out this weekend.
- 250 Fastest Qualifier: No. 47 Levi Kitchen (48.636)
- 450 Fastest Qualifier: No. 4 Chase Sexton (47.353)
Heat Racing Recap
Broken middle finger or not, Nate Thrasher looked fast in the opening 250 heat race and went wire-to-wire for the win. Cam McAdoo did appear to be setting himself up for a last-lap pass, but he got a bad drive into the whoops and went down in the sand section before the finish, anyway. The good news is that he only lost a couple of spots, but that could've been disastrous; McAdoo took an eternity to get straight, even after getting upright. Levi Kitchen made short work getting by Max Anstie in Heat 2, and despite a late charge, just about went wire to wire, with the Brit and Rick James Hampshire rounding out the podium spots.
Moto 1 on the 450 side was as wild an opening two minutes since that A1 Main Event. Justin Cooper, Dylan Ferrandis (yes, I couldn't believe it either), and Jason Anderson all had a point early on here, and the latter got by both on a two-for-one special before cruising to a win. Things were pretty spicy between the ex-Star Yamaha teammates the entire way, but nothing that I'd consider dirty. JCoop took a while, but he finally got by for P3 on that final lap with some really crafty inside line work. Chase Sexton meanwhile backed up his fastest qualifying outing with a huge heat race win over Malcolm Stewart and Cooper Webb.
250 East Recap
1st) No. 47 Levi Kitchen (Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki)
Well...are we all on the same page about late-race restart procedure now? The old adage goes, "control what you can control", and despite not being as good as Max Anstie yesterday, Kitchen made the best of a second lease on life at Ford Field. I was surprised that he made the inside of the sand section work on Anstie off the restart since he could get nothing going there after he lost the lead.
2nd) No. 31 Max Anstie (Monster Energy Star Racing Yamaha)
Alright, let's just get right to it: I cannot believe Anstie called out Bobby Regean in front of the whole world post-race. Saying that your boss shouldn't bother calling you ever again if he won't show up to the races, after implying that Anstie "doesn't expect to win" is absolutely insane. Tremendous content, but certifiably insane. It's brutal that he had to lose in that fashion, given how good he looked, but apparently he and Bobby Regean are on more than good terms still, so that's...something.
4th) No. 1 Tom Vialle (Red Bull KTM)
The starts haven't been super kind to the reigning 250 East Champion through two starts, and even with the pace being podium-worthy in Detroit, Vialle is already down a dozen points, and this could be a repeat of Motocross last year for him if things continue to snowball. What's really odd is that he ran either the fastest or second fastest time in 5/8 sectors on this course and was 14 seconds back with about 2:00 left on the clock, dropping a spot to R.J. Hampshire before the red flag. This group has to figure things out coming out of this break.
DNF) No. 50 Cam McAdoo (Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki)
Every year, it's the same devastating story with McAdoo. He was a handful of moments away from securing a respectable sixth, but a vicious-looking get-off at the end of the whoops left him with a massive scar over his left cheek. I don't know what guys like him and Austin Forkner need to do to get the injury bug knocked off, but you just can't help but feel awful for a guy like McAdoo, who showed off some real grit racing on a torn ACL.
250 East Detroit Top 10
1st No. 47 Levi Kitchen
2nd No. 31 Max Anstie
3rd No. 24 R.J. Hampshire
4th No. 1 Tom Vialle
5th No. 41 Nate Thrasher
6th No. 10 Chance Hymas
7th No. 83 Austin Forkner
8th No. 60 Carson Mumford
9th No. 92 Max Vohland
10th No. 55 Henry Miller
250 East Points Standings after Detroit
1st No. 31 Max Anstie (47 Points)
2nd No. 47 Levi Kitchen (38 Points)
3rd No. 1 Tom Vialle (35 Points)
4th No. 10 Chance Hymas (32 Points)
5th No. 41 Nate Thrasher (31 Points)
6th No. 59 Cullin Park (26 Points)
7th No. 60 Carson Mumford (26 Points)
8th No. 24 R.J. Hampshire (24 Points)
9th No. 56 Seth Hammaker (23 Points)
10th No. 55 Henry Miller (23 Points)
450 Class Recap
1st) No. 2 Cooper Webb (Monster Energy Star Racing Yamaha)
If Webb wasn't squarely in the mix before Saturday, he certainly is now, tied for the points lead after outworking Ken Roczen. He did a fantastic job not forcing himself into anything drastic to get by; his crunch-time line choices were absolute money, and making the move for the win when he did essentially took away any shot Roczen had to make a late rally. Perfect ride; no other real way to describe it.
2nd) No. 94 Ken Roczen (HEP Progressive/Ecstar Suzuki)
I honestly wouldn't compare this ride by Roczen to any of his losses to Webb in years past. A perfectly good ride by him; Webb just felt like the better guy, and it felt inevitable in those final five minutes, he'd be getting by for the win. Those extra three points would've been nice, given the gap from Roczen to Sexton/Webb, but we still have a long way to go, and the speed to win races in 2025 has been there just about every round so far.
3rd) No. 4 Chase Sexton (Red Bull KTM)
Yeah, that felt like a par-for-the-course Chase Sexton ride, if there ever was one. I don't want to call what he does "Tomac-esqe," for obvious reasons, but when he turns his brain off after these early race mistakes and becomes better than anyone else, it's a sight to behold. It's a shame these mistakes keep happening, but that KTM team should be happy, he still has the red plate going into Dallas. Additionally, I loved this post-race presser answer about whether he thought about taking down the intensity level with Jason Anderson when things got dicey late—no point in leaving meat on the bone that late in the game.
450 Class Detroit Top 10
1st No. 2 Cooper Webb
2nd No. 94 Ken Roczen
3rd No. 4 Chase Sexton
4th No. 27 Malcolm Stewart
5th No. 32 Justin Cooper
6th No. 21 Jason Anderson
7th No. 51 Justin Barcia
8th No. 14 Dylan Ferrandis
9th No. 7 Aaron Plessinger
10th No. 46 Justin Hill
450 Points Standings After Detroit
1st No. 4 Chase Sexton (121 Points)
2nd No. 2 Cooper Webb (121 Points)
3rd No. 94 Ken Roczen (105 Points)
4th No. 21 Jason Anderson (100 Points)
5th No. 27 Malcolm Stewart (95 Points)
6th No. 32 Justin Cooper (86 Points)
7th No. 51 Justin Barcia (83 Points)
8th No. 3 Eli Tomac (80 Points)
9th No. 1 Jett Lawrence (77 Points)
10th No. 46 Justin Hill (69 Points) (Nice)
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