All three Monster Energy Supercross Championship fights came down to the final race of the season at Rice-Eccles Stadium this year, and for the first time since the pandemic-affected season in 2020, three separate brands got to take home some hardware, with three riders at various different points in their careers.
Starting with R.J. Hampshire, who finally gets his first No. 1 plate after 10 years of trying. Having to outduel Levi Kitchen in what essentially turned into a one-race season was no easy task, especially for a guy who flirts with disaster more than any other rider, regardless of class. But to his credit, he put in one of the best outright performances, if not the single best outright performance of his career, and the Pro Circuit rider never even came close to him after a clutch start.
Frenchman Tom Vialle, in just his second season of Supercross, meanwhile, held a comfortable enough double-digit points lead on Haiden Deegan. However, after an uninspiring Heat Race outing, I had serious concerns about how he would do with an atrocious gate pick of 18th. Welp, the Frenchman would make out just fine, bringing KTM their first 250 Supercross title since his mentor Marvin Musquin did so back in 2015.
The Jett Lawrence 450 Title clincher was the least surprising result of the three, given his 20-point cushion, plus the thumb injury to his closet competition in Cooper Webb. Still, as we saw with Eli Tomac a year ago, you don't count the chickens before the eggs hatch. Luckily for Lawrence, he put himself in a perfect position to wrap things up on the back of an eight-win campaign. In doing so, he's now won every AMA Championship there is to win sans the 250 SMX title, which I doubt he's sweating much. Additionally, he also joins names like Ryan Dungey and Jeremy McGrath as rookie Premier-Class Champions in the most contested series this genre of racing has to offer.
Rick James
Despite having a ton of success over the last three years, It increasingly felt like with competition like the Lawrence Brothers, Dylan Ferrandis, Christian Craig, etc, in his path, a 250 Supercross Championship was unlikely in the cards for the Florida native. With that said, this year was undoubtedly his best shot at doing just that; it was only a matter of whether or not Hampshire could eliminate some of the clumsier mistakes that have held him back over the years.
History will now show that Hampshire, on the back of a three-win campaign, including Anaheim 1, that he did. His two worst outings this year were the county mud bog event in San Francisco and that next weekend on a slick San Diego track, finishing ninth and sixth, respectively. In fact, Hampshire only finished off the podium once outside of those two rounds, the St. Louis Triple Crown, where he went 4-4-2.
In short, I'm happy that R.J., who objectively put in some excellent work over the last few years with Rockstar Husky and has been one of my favorite riders to watch from a style standpoint, finally gets the big one. He'll make his fair share of mistakes, but very few guys are more fun to keep tabs on when they're visibly on that ragged edge. I imagine some people will scoff at a 10th-year 250 SX Champion, but not everyone's path is the same in this sport, and if you want him on a big bike, I imagine you'll get that wish granted at some point in 2025. It'll just be a matter of whether that's in January or June.
A Frenchman Born for the Bright Lights
Several months before Vialle ever took his first Main Event Supercross gate drop in Houston 2023, I knew the Frenchman would handle the immense pressure of competing for a Supercross Championship just fine despite no prior pro experience outside of strictly Motocross. The reason I'll always point back to was less about his 2022 MX2 World Championship win and more about how he secured it.
Let's rewind to just after the MXGP of Belgium in the famed sands of Lommel. Running on a four Moto stretch of 10-2-7-4, Vialle was down 23 points on Factory Yamaha's Jago Geerts with four rounds left on the year, then three after the two swapped a pair of firsts and seconds that next round in Sweden. Vialle was in a situation where he almost had to finish 1-2/2-1 at the absolute worst to have a chance, and he did just that. Winning four of the final six Motoinon the year while Geerts only won one, the KTM rider was on the good end of a 27-point swing to win his second MX2 World Title.
This is all to say that when Vialle had that stone-cold performance in Philly to slam the door on Haiden Deegan essentially, I wasn't that surprised. Vialle might not show it, but he's as mentally tough and battle-tested as any 250 riders on the planet today, and American fans witnessed that firsthand over the last month. Should he parlay this into an American Motocross title this year as well, that would be equally unsurprising.
A New Golden Age?
It's not exactly a secret that Honda was snakebitten in terms of Championship success after parting ways with Ricky Carmichael and failing to acquire James Stewart (so good btw) back in 2004. Twenty years later, the red brand seems to be back to the form it had in the early 2000s with RC and the bulk of the 90s with Jeremy McGrath, Jeff Stanton, and Jean Michael-Bayle.
Dating back to Supercross last year, Factory Honda has won all four of the available Premier Class AMA Championships, and they were a coinflip away from that being 5-for-5 had Chase Sexton been able to outduel Eli Tomac in the summer of 2022. Even then, that's a level of success that any team would kill for at the premier class level, now more than ever, with the talent level being where it is. And it's hard to argue they have the top dog in the game with Jett Lawrence anymore.
Would it be too early to call this another golden age for the red brand? Perhaps just a little bit, but they're well on their way. Hard to see Jett slowing down anytime soon, and Hunter Lawrence progressed a ton this year. And although we know this run won't last forever, as is the natural cycle in this sport especially, Lars Lindstrom and the boys have the opportunity to stay at the top for as long as they want to keep Jett around, which should be the case for about the next decade.
Main Image via Honda HRC