It wasn't too much in doubt that Haiden Deegan would clinch this year's 250 Pro Motocross Title at Budds Creek today; he officially does so in Moto 1 on the back of a monster outing and just enough shortcomings by Levi Kitchen to clinch things with the virtue of a wins tiebreaker, with an exact 75 point gap.
Deegan's ninth Moto win of 2024 and 17th top-three run also puts him in some elite Star Yamaha company, now grouped with Dylan Ferrandis, Aaron Plessinger, Cooper Webb, and Jeremy Martin as riders to take home 250 Outdoor Championships for the now standard bearer for this sport. Also, he's the first American to win the title, dating back to Adam Cianciarulo's 2019 title win over Ferrandis.
Elite Consistency
It's funny that Ferrandis got mentioned twice because I can draw many comparisons to 2021. They both won Nationals at about the same clip (Ferrandis taking half of the 12 Nationals that year, Deegan 5-of-9 heading into this weekend), and they were both consistently in the top three, nearly at all times. That was a massive part of why Deegan wrapped things up early; the other side is that he kept out of trouble when all of his title rivals had BRUTAL starts to the season by comparison. As a chief example, Levi Kitchen left many points on the board in those early rounds where he lost some 1v1s against Deegan; then things really unraveled at Thunder Valley and High Point. Then you add that Vialle and Shimoda never got off to a good enough start; this title hunt was realistically over much earlier than this.
No Des Nations?
While Deegan's immediate focus now shifts to defending the 250 SMX Playoff crown, Motocross Des Nations has been a hot topic for him these last few years. After the whole Nationalism shtick at Washougal in 2023, you'd figure he'd be game to go over to Ernee, no questions asked, but that, of course, was not the case. A year later, Deegan does have somewhat of an excuse to potentially not run at Matterly Basin: a planned surgery to clean up a wrist issue he had coming into the Supercross tilt.
Even then, I think, especially after the 2018 loss at RedBud, there should be an expectation for the top United States riders to want to make that trip. Sure, you'll have the instances of injuries or guys set to switch teams wanting to get a jump on learning a new platform, which is perfectly acceptable. However, after the summer Deegan just had, I have a hard time believing that an extra race weekend would hurt him any more than he might be right now. Secondly, assuming Eli Tomac is in after missing half the summer (a year after Christian Craig rode for Team USA under the same circumstances), that's a horrendous look for Deegan if it comes out that he declined an MX2 spot two years in a row.
I don't think it's a stretch to assume there are more than a handful of AMA and MXGP competitors working through or working their way back from something right now and still wanting to compete come October. Hell, we saw Justin Cooper get a boxer fracture in his hands at Des Nations not even five years ago and still gut it out for 60 minutes. It might just be me, but I don't think it's an unfair expectation on my end for the defending National 250 Motocross Champion to want to run Des Nations. And for the record, there's a chance Roger De Coster and co. I didn't really consider Deegan this year for whatever reason, but if it comes out that he turned down a ride (again), he shouldn't be immune to criticism.
Main Image via Yamaha
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