The penultimate round of Monster Energy AMA Supercross took place in Denver, Colorado, and there was a lot to talk about. We had a bunch of privateers racing for 100K on Friday, some first-time hostility between the big dogs in the 450 class, and a rider clinched a 250SX title and told the fans to “suck it.”
Not your ordinary night in the Mile High City!
I said last week that I thought Chase Sexton would win the next two rounds, with Cooper Webb getting second and then probably a third or fourth to wrap up the title. Well, one down and correctamundo for Steve. Only this time, Sexton made some contact with Webb when he took the lead. Chase was a little peeved at Webb for what he felt was a cross-jump on the first lap, but Webb said that was a mistake down a rhythm lane.
Well, Sexton wasn’t having it and slammed Webb to take the lead. No harm, no foul, as Webb stayed up and took second.
Sexton, for his part, isn’t going to bunch them up or try to clean out Webb this weekend. He’ll just take the win, the 150K+, and know that he’ll be up on Webb 7 wins to 5 for the season and finish runner-up for the title.
Sexton swore to me after the race that nothing is signed for him next year, although most of us expect him to head to Monster Kawasaki. If I were him, though, and provided KTM can show him some solid evidence that the USA side has the funds, I’d stay orange. But that’s just me. If he doesn’t, there’s a guy from Colorado waiting in the wings to get on the KTM.
Webb wasn’t himself and had to fend off Malcolm Stewart and Justin Cooper to get second. He was sick this week (come to think of it, he sounded stuffed up on last Monday’s PulpMX Show), and he’s never liked Denver anyway. Hard-packed dirt, elevation, and all that stuff that’s not very “Webb-ish.” He was just okay out there—if he didn’t get that good start, he would’ve been in a battle to make the podium.
Byy the way, this is yet another example of a mistake leading to a cross-jump. So, when a rider freaks out about someone cross-jumping them, I usually act like it’s a nothing burger because every rider at some point has cross-jumped a dude behind them. It happens! Now, do some guys do it on purpose? Yeah, for sure, but it’s kind of impossible to know for sure. Supercross is hard, and even someone as great as Cooper Webb can make mistakes.
Justin Cooper wasn’t going to pass Webb (unless Webb made a mistake, and even then, that would’ve been interesting). But to even get a podium, he had to pass a charging Malcolm Stewart and then fend off a still-charging Malcolm Stewart, but yet also, NOT pass Cooper Webb! That was an interesting dilemma for J Coop, and he threaded the needle pretty well, but things were going to get interesting if there were another few laps, that’s for sure.
By the way, were you, like me, wondering if Justin Cooper had improved in this second 450SX season? I mean, to me, without deep diving into the stats, it seems about the same, right? Well, thanks to my friend MX Reference, we can look at J Coop's stats from the last two years:
Two stats stick out: his average finish is two spots better and lots more top fives. So yes, 2025 has been better for #32 than 2024! (The caveat is we’ve had more injuries this year.)
Stewart was fast all day, won his heat, and, like I said, almost ended up on the box at the end of the night. Good day for Malcolm, and yes, he was very fast in the whoops. The whoops were actually pretty perfect this week. Yes, they broke down, but harder-packed dirt made jumping a little slower than skimming, and guys could skim them all day long. It was almost perfection for a set of whoops!
That pass Haiden Deegan did on Cole Davies was fine. Calm down, everyone. Was it aggressive? Yeah, for sure, but it was for the win, and Davies should’ve known that was going to happen because, well, BECAUSE DEEGS DID THE SAME THING TO HIM IN PRACTICE.
Cole Davies got tired, he got hung up with lappers, and he needed a little more experience to hold on and win his third race in a row. Instead, he got punted over a berm. Poor Davies.
Deegan rode great, and there’s no taking that away from him. He clinched the SX title also (his first)! But Haiden being Haiden, he couldn’t just roll up and explain how bad he felt for Cole, how it was for the win, how Cole owes him one, and he hopes they can talk it out. He did say "congrats to Cole" and said he rode well, but then he went into talking about those that doubted him and to the fans that don’t like it, they can suck it. Somewhere out there, Bobby “the Brain” Heenan was smiling.
Deegs really got triggered by the booing, I think. Strange because he sort of lives this made-up vlog life and seems to love being the heel. So, in my opinion, the boos rattled him pretty good, and he instantly went into fight-back mode.
Deegs can’t help but go Deegs on the podium, and the next day he issued a social media apology for saying "Suck it" to the fans, but there’ll be another time where he can’t help himself. And maybe another halfhearted apology. It’s just what he does. Still, great ride for #38 out there.
I was talking to Mitch Payton after the race, and he told me that after the practice thing between Davies and Deegs and then the race thing, he would definitely have pulled the riders into the lounge and told them to knock it off. He used an example of Dean Wilson and Blake Baggett getting into it years ago, and he told me he basically said if they didn’t stop it, they both wouldn’t race.
Now, knowing what we know about Star Yamaha from current and past riders, the team over there thrives on the competition of it all and pitting the guys against each other, so yeah, Mitch, doesn’t think a word will be said to either guy about anything.
Wild stat of the 250SX year: Davies has led 90 laps to Deegan’s 22! Heck, Jo Shimoda has led 20 laps. But Deegan has those three wins to Davies’ two, and he’s got the title as well.
Garrett Marchbanks took the last spot on the podium and rode well all day. He’s from Utah, so elevation and that dirt probably suited him pretty well. Shame he fell in the heat because I’d like to think he would’ve had a pretty good race with Deegan. Someone I talked to seemed to think G’s podiums this year would be enough to keep him on Pro Circuit another year, but to me, this coming MX season is huge for him.
Speaking of huge, I posed this question to Payton after the race because Marchbanks is a beast and seeing rookie Drew Adams come back and appear to also have filled out pretty well, I wondered if Marchbanks and Adams could beat the crap out of every other 250SX rider out there? Like, put those two in a ring and then just have every other 250SX rider run in like those WWF brawls they have. Hey, Haiden and Brian Deegan would probably love that anyway!
My money is on Marchbanks and Adams, by the way.
-Shane McElrath was really good again. He started up front (again) and fought hard to get a 6th. Good work for the #12 there, and if he can put in another ride like this, he’ll jump into seventh overall in the 450SX points for the year. Not too bad, right? Also, out of the riders in the top 20 in points, he’s got the second-worst qualifying average, which means his gate picks for heats aren’t ideal.
-Some signs of life for Christian Craig! He was actually in the top five for one qualifying session for a while and finished 11th in the main event. Not where he wants to be, but that’s something. The hard-packed dirt was better for him, I suppose. That’s the good news. The bad news is there’s one round left in SX, and unless there’s an injury in the 450s for motocross, his season is over.
For the fourth year in a row, Feld let us run the Yamaha PulpMX LCQ Challenge race on Friday, and maybe, finally, we had some chaos. Thanks to you people buying the raffle tickets for the chance to win a 2025 Yamaha YZ450F and a bunch of other prizes, we’ve been able to give privateers almost 900K in seven years. The first three years of this, we handed out the money based on point standings. Then came the actual race, now in its fourth year. Kevin Moranz went 2-2 for the OA (we stagger start them for moto 2 with 22nd up front and 1st at the back), so for Moranz to go from 21st place to 2nd in 6 minutes, that was pretty good. He was helped by a rule change we at PulpMX made that allowed passing on the staggered start before you got to the first turn. Moranz moved his bike out of line (a little shady, but hey, PulpMX IS shady!) and got four guys right away before the first turn. Moranz won over 25K for his efforts, Marshall Weltin was second, and Hardy Munoz (the star of the show on the 250, if you ask me) got the third spot. And a good time was had by all, even Hunter Schlosser, who improbably endoed off the start of the staggered start.
See below for the money paid out, including all the various props we had from fans and industry people. Thanks again to the Feld guys, you people for buying the tickets, and see you in 2026!
Thanks for reading OBS; one more to go, and it’s a wrap! We’re onto SLC. Email me at matthes@racerxonline.com if you want to chat about this or anything else.
