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For the first time in five decades of Supercross racing, five former premier-class champions lined up on the gate for the season opener in 2025. While there was a clear favorite, it seemed that any one of those five — plus some others — could win the AMA Monster Energy Supercross championship. Now, just five races into the season, 40% of those champions are out of contention due to injury. And that's not all the damage.
I've made the argument before that Supercross/motocross is the most brutal form of racing. You may be more likely to die with the high speeds of MotoGP or Superbike racing, rally racing has its own brand of treacherousness, and even the X Games can put you on a wheelchair instead of a motorcycle, but motocross dishes out constant punishment to racers' bodies. Few riders extend their careers much past age 30. The question is not whether you will suffer an injury during a long professional career, but rather how many, how severe, and how permanent the damage will be. And now, under the SuperMotocross format, with the racing season extending for nine solid months with 17 Supercross rounds, 11 Pro Motocross outdoor rounds, and the three-race "playoffs" in September, the opportunities for injury have expanded. Riders take a pounding that is not only intense, but also relentless.
It doesn't take a spectacular end-over-end cartwheel off the side of the track to end a season, either. As we've been reminded in the last two weeks, a simple foot dab can turn a championship contender into a rehab patient.
Before the start of the season, defending Supercross champion Jett Lawrence was the easy choice as favorite. Since moving up to the 450 class in 2023, he has won four of the five potential championships, missing only last year's Pro Motocross outdoor title because — no surprise — of a thumb injury suffered during a practice session. Some thought the question was not whether Lawrence would win, but whether he would break the single-season Supercross race win record of 14, held jointly by Jeremy McGrath and Ricky Carmichael. I'll admit, I was one of them, stating in our annual predictions article that that I thought Lawrence would tie the record. We now know that he won't win 14. He'll win one.
In the third race at the fourth round in Arizona — one of the Triple Crown rounds with three shorter races instead of one main event — a simple foot dab had Lawrence pulling off track with pain in his leg. Later, an MRI confirmed a torn ACL. Now the best hope is that he'll be ready for the opening round of Pro Motocross in late May.
Then this past weekend, it was Eli Tomac, in his last year of racing, who pulled off the track in pain after catching his foot during a qualifying session, twisting his leg between the ground and his footpeg. You can see exactly what happened at the beginning of the highlights video below. Fans feared the worst, not only because it looked a lot like Lawrence's injury, but it also reminded us that it was less than two years ago that Tomac had to fight back from a ruptured Achilles tendon. Initial reports were that it was a sprained ankle and a bruised calf, which was a relief. Tomac still qualified for the main in his heat race and literally limped to the finish to earn five points.
Only yesterday did we get the startling update: Tomac suffered a fracture of the fibula, one of the two bones in the lower leg.
So let's consider: Eli Tomac rode a pro-level Supercross track with a broken leg and finished in the points against the world's best riders. I once did a track walk and found it challenging to walk a pro-level Supercross track.
The attrition didn't stop there and wasn't limited to the former champions. Jett Lawrence's brother and Honda HRC Progressive teammate, Hunter Lawrence, crashed hard in his heat race when he got off line and tumbled off the course. Also yesterday came the news that he would be undergoing surgery to repair torn cartilage in his shoulder. Cracks were also found in his humerus, the upper arm bone, according to the team news release. Hunter Lawrence will likely miss the rest of the Supercross season, just like his brother surely will. With its entire 450 team out with injuries, HRC will focus on its 250-class riders.
"Racing can be cruel, and there's no denying that 2025 has been particularly tough on our team so far, with all our riders affected by injury in some way," said American Honda Manager of Racing and Advertising Brandon Wilson.
Even after tallying up all that damage, the toll at Tampa among the title contenders could have been worse, because Ken Roczen also suffered a hard crash after he tangled with a lapped rider in the main. Roczen was uninjured, but the incident knocked his chain off the rear sprocket, leaving him with a finish of 21st.
With two of the five former champions out, the other three sit at the top of the standings: Sexton, Cooper Webb, and Jason Anderson. And just behind, in fourth, is Roczen, the rider with the most Supercross wins without a championship.
Amid all the bad news, the feel-good news of the season, so far, also happened in Tampa this weekend as former 250 SX champ Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing's Malcolm Stewart finally got his first 450 race win, after years of frustration. Stewart did it in a straight-up battle, setting the fastest lap of the race, catching and then pressuring and passing Sexton, who led most of the race. And he did it in front of his home state fans and most of his family, including very proud big brother James Stewart who was calling the race in the NBC booth.
Just five races into a 31-race SuperMotocross season, the brutal sport has already taken a toll. The series moves to Detroit this weekend. Who knows what will happen.
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