Jett Lawrence wins the inaugural SuperMotocross "playoffs"

Lawrence and his Team Honda HRC teammate, Chase Sexton, came into the final round at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in first and second in the points standings and locked in a tight battle with Progressive Insurance ECSTAR Suzuki's Ken Roczen. In this weekend's final round, Lawrence won the first moto but all three riders were still in contention. In the second moto, Sexton crashed out while in the lead and Lawrence finished up his perfect night with Roczen second in both motos.

With the points increasing at each of the three rounds in the playoffs, finishing strong is more important than starting strong or being consistent. Lawrence did a good job at all of that, following up his fourth-place finish at Charlotte with wins in Chicago and Los Angeles to finish comfortably ahead of Roczen in the final points. Roczen finished second at all three rounds.

While much has been said of Honda's atypical struggles in roadracing, the usually powerful Honda Racing Corp. has been dominant in motocross this year. In Supercross, Chase Sexton won the 450SX class, Jett Lawrence won the 250SX West class, and Hunter Lawrence won 250SX East. In the AMA Pro Motocross outdoor season, Jett stepped up to the 450 class and became the first rookie to complete a perfect season, winning every moto, while Hunter won the 250 class.

The only thing between Honda and a clean sweep in all the U.S. series was Haiden Deegan, who won the SuperMotocross 250 title for Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing. With four or five riders fighting at the front in the two 250 motos, nobody was able to dominate. The two moto winners, Levi Kitchen and Jordon Smith, both finished 10th in the moto they didn't win. That meant that Deegan's finishes of fifth and second in the two motos was enough to give him the overall win for the night and place him five points ahead of Jo Shimoda in the final SuperMotocross standings.

Thus ends the longest season of motocross racing, with the 17-round Supercross season flowing right into the 11 rounds of AMA Pro Motocross outdoor racing and finishing with the three-race SuperMotocross "World Championship" that isn't recognized as a world championship by the FIM. The racers will now finally get a few weekends off, except for Roczen, who is competing in the teetering World Supercross Championship. Motocross is more complicated than ever — except for figuring out if Jett Lawrence is going to win. That seems easy.