Jason Thomas (0:00)

A pulp MX Network production. A cerebral and experienced look into the racing action from the week that was. This is Industry Seating with Jason Thomas. Presented by Pirelli Tires, Guts Racing, Plum Creek Funding Pro Glow Wash Works Connection, Bass Foundry TL Speed Shop Concept Co Design Company Grandstone Boots and Fly Racing. Welcome to the first industry seating podcast for 2025. Well, we got through a one and I think that's usually what most people are just trying to do. I think even for myself, television broadcast and so many different aspects of my work life. There's a lot happening at that race. You know, I think for the fans, if you're just going there to enjoy it, yeah, it's awesome. There's so much happening, it's so much to take in. That's great. But for a lot of the industry, myself, teams, mechanics, riders, anybody that has a job to do there, it is a lot to manage, work through. There's a lot of change. Just everything is, is just in flux. It's. It's really hard to describe and you're being pulled in a hundred different directions. You're getting, trying to get new credentials and it's just, it, it's more than you probably want to hear about here. But the, the important thing is we got through it. It was a successful weekend for, for most anyway, which we'll get to. And we're on to, we're on to round two, we're on to San Diego and we're going to bring back the power rankings for today. I haven't done it in quite a while, but yeah, this is the perfect opportunity to do it. Before we get to the power rankings, before we get to the tupity class, I want to thank the sponsors of this podcast. Guts Racing Works Connection TL Speed Shop, Grant Stone Boots Pro Glow Wash, Firepower batteries and hard parts and Fly Racing. Thank you to all of them for being on board for 2025. And as I mentioned, let's go straight to 250s. We'll, we'll wrap this thing up with the power rankings as we Normally do, but 250s, I'm sure everybody heard, you know, the, the Levi kitchen thing, it's a bummer. I, I don't know where this stuff come. You know, RJ made a comment that he had heard he was going to switch and then Deegan was really leaning into it and weighing into. We buy kitchen on social media. I don't really buy it. I think he had the flu. I think he was sick. I think he tried to ride Saturday, which he did, and I just don't think he could do it. And you don't skip the press conference. You don't skip Friday practice. You don't go out there, ride one time and then pack it in just because it's an excuse. Like, Kitchen's been beaten in these series. He's. He's been beaten by Hayden Deegan multiple times. Like, you think I'm supposed to believe that he's scared of being beaten by Hayden Deegan? I don't believe that. I don't think he's running away from Hayden Deegan or dodging him or anything of the sort. Just because you have to race Hayden Deegan. Going, going to the east coast is not a. Any sort of picnic. Look at the guys over there. There's. I would argue that outside of Hayden, it's way deeper on the east now. That's not something you'd be running towards. So all that noise and the, I don't know, just the social media stuff and the scheming or conspiracy theory of all, I'm out. I'm out on all that. I just think he got really sick and I think he didn't feel like he could really be competitive at all. At A1, he was going to start the series way behind. If he could race at all, he's probably going to get a terrible result in the main event because it's, you know, 16 minutes as hard as you can go, and there. There's probably no way he could do that. And he, there's a chance he's going to hurt himself trying to. And then who's to say he's even better next week in San Diego? He could still be sick going into next weekend and really eliminate himself from a championship in the first weekend or two. I just, I don't think there's a lot of wisdom in that decision. And does it suck for Mitch Payton? Of course it does. You think Mitch was excited that he's going to have one rider on the west now? And, and I do think they'll move Drew Adams in for San Diego, but he's out of any championship contention after missing the first round. There's really no upside to any of this. They could have just put Levi east weeks ago. As soon as Hayden declared for the west, they could have moved Levi East. It's not hard to do. This just seems like much ado about nothing for me, so I'm just gonna tap out on all that craziness and just take it at face value and believe he was super sick. I've never known Levi Kitchen, to be anything but truthful, I haven't seen him play a lot of games. I haven't seen him really take part in all this nonsense that people are, are kind of pointing to. So I'm just going to stay away from it now. As for Hayden Deegan riding, he looked phenomenal all weekend other than the first turn, crash, practice on Friday, qualifying on Saturday, heat race on Saturday, all exactly what you'd want to see. The Hayden Deegan that we, we watched in pro motocross, we watched in SMX playoffs and the final final, that was the same guy. You just, you can't crash on the start. And we saw chaos on the starts all night long. That was not any sort of one off. If you didn't get a good jump with that split start and how tight it was down there, things could go sideways really quickly. And unfortunately, when it mattered most, it did for Hayden Deegan. He's gonna be fine. He's still the best rider on this west coast championship and probably in either coast, he's probably still the best guy. So don't freak out. It's one round, he still battled all the way back to fifth. There's no reason to do anything other than just say, yeah, not, not an ideal result. And he needs, he's going to need to bounce back and make sure that he doesn't let one bad result turn into more bad results because he is, what, you know, nine points down or whatever the number is. You just don't want to see that start to grow because then it can become a problem. But as for one night, one round, no, I'm not, I'm not concerned in the least about where this goes for Hayden Deegan. Joe Shimoda, that's exactly what he needed. That is exactly what you would want to see him show up and do at Anaheim. It's what we've been asking for, for I don't know how many years now we've diagnosed the problem. It doesn't matter if it's supercross, it doesn't matter if it's motocross. He has had a difficult time starting a series fast, getting the results he needs so he can firmly put himself into championship contention and not look up three or four rounds in and be down 30 or 40 points. That's what he's done every year. So this was the first time he hasn't done that. And I'm not going to pretend that I know exactly where we go from here or what that means long term. I don't know that. But I do know this, this was a step in the right direction and if you know a problem, you have to address it. And the problem was very clear. Casual fans could tell you if they'd just been paying attention. Well, yeah, you're really not doing very well at the beginning. And if you were looking at real data on some sort of graph or a chart or anything analytical like that, it would be as clear as day where the disconnect is. So I'm happy for Joe to see him kind of address that and fix it and, you know, it's easier said than done. I'm sure he was trying, you know, he can say whatever he wants about all. You know, he's told Steve. I always write the same, well, the evidence would not support your claim, sir. You know, if this was a court of law, the judge would be like, well, that's. You're saying one thing and, and your actions and the evidence says an incredibly different thing. And this, this was the answer. So I, you know, I don't know if it was a change of scenery. You know, he's in Florida now. He's working with Eric Sorby as his coach and trainer. He's riding at different race, you know, practice tracks during the week. He's practicing with different people. I don't know what the difference was. And I would say he probably doesn't know what the, in the end, what the number one differentiator was. It could just be that he got a good start. I don't know. The heat race wasn't good. It wasn't like he whole shot of the heat and ran away with that either. But the end result was he won the main event, period. Doesn't have to be more than that. And I, for one, was happy for him. I really like Joe Shimoti's. He's really genuine. He's really nice on the podium, he's polite. He. I've never seen him really give people attitude. And yeah, so he's. He, as is another writer I'm going to mention, they're easy to cheer for. Julian Bomer, I was impressed. That was a really good day. And, and in December, in our fellow media days at, at the Angel Stadium in Anaheim, he told us he's like, you guys really haven't seen the best of me. If you were at the KTM track on a Wednesday, you would see the best of me. But I haven't really been able to bring that to the races and I'm not really sure why, but if I ever can, you're going to see something more that I've been showing you. And I'll be damned if he didn't show it to us this weekend. We saw glimpses of it. Charlotte, I think was a glimpse into what he is capable of. Weeding half the race, kind of. He was kind of pulling away. He checked out on those guys. So if that is what a week in, week out, Julian Bomer has, his future is pretty damn bright. That was, that was a really strong showing. He had speed, he had good starts, he had stamina. He had all of it. You know, would I like to see him go up and challenge Joe more in the main event? Sure. But you could also argue that it's a one. Don't throw away a podium, a second place finish, doing something silly on an incredibly tricky racetrack because you're hell bent on winning the opener. You know, there's that side of the same argument in, you know, in the same breath that I made about wanting to see him go challenge Joe. So I don't have any real negatives to say here. I'm just saying if you wanted something more, that's really it. Go fight for the lead more. Don't settle for second. But there's a nasty underbelly to that approach too, is it's really easy to crash yourself out and everybody be like, why would you throw away a podium at the opener? You can't win the championship in the first. Like, you know, that's immediately what people say, would say, including myself, Jordan Smith, third place, strong. You know, you could say that he fell over and cost himself a shot at the win or shot at second. Okay, fine. But he fought back. He got third. He made a pass. Wait in the race to get on the podium. That's what you want to see from him. He is a genuinely nice person, similar to Joe. He's easy to root for. He doesn't give you a lot to talk crap about him for or dislike him or you're not going to see tweets or posts on anywhere message board social media about people taking shots at Jordan because he, he doesn't give you reason to. If you want to say he's crashed too much over the course of his career, fine, that's okay. I would probably agree. But as far as who he is and should you support his success and really be truly happy for him, he is that guy where I give you, not that you care, but I would give you absolute the green light to, to make this guy a rider you cheer for. If you're looking for somebody in the 250s to really support Jordan Smith. Could, could be that guy without any qualms or hesitation. Two more 250 guys. One is Cole Davies. He was a last minute. I don't say last minute, but pretty late addition to two Bitty West. He was originally scheduled to race Futures and remember he got poached by monster Yamaha Star racing away from ktm. And was it gas? Gas? It was gas. Gas. But the plan was for him to race futures in 2025 for Yamaha. And they basically just said he's going too fast at the practice track. Some days he was the quickest of all of them, including Hayden. And they just said this would be a waste to put him in futures. Let's move him up. And I think they made the right call. You know, the results were not perfect. Right. They weren't exactly what you'd want. He didn't come out and like win the open or do anything, but he showed a lot of flash. He was really fast in practice. He gets second in the heat race and then he gets a top 10 in the main event. That is a hell of an opening round for a kid who somewhat. Some could argue that he's, He's. They moved him up quickly. I'm not going to say too quickly because he backed it up, but you could argue that they moved him up quickly and he lived up to it. I watched him closely on Friday and Saturday and qualifying and he like, he looks the part. He is the real deal. His techniques there, his aggression's there, his starts are there. I have nothing but praise to give this kid because I would have been one that said it's too early, he's not ready. They're rushing him into the pros when he should take another year and develop. That would have been my approach coming into a 1 and I so far would have been very wrong in that. I, I thought it was premature. And he looks great. He doesn't look like he needs any more time. Of course, that depends on your expectation. If the expectation is to go win races in 2025, then maybe it's too early. But if I think it was an A plus weekend from him, you look at how good he was across the board and then to finish there inside the top 10, that was kind of the exclamation point on a really, really strong opening weekend for Cole Davies. So I think if you're Bobby Reagan or anybody associated with that team, you have to be happy with what he showed you. He proved you right in your decision to put him up with as he would say, as Cole Davies would say with the big boys. Last rider, Anthony Bourdon. I don't know how you say it. Burden. I've heard Lee Diffie. I've heard lots of people say it lots of different ways. So I don't truly know. I'm going to ask somebody that would know. Sebastian Tortelli or somebody. How do you pronounce this last name? The point is, this kid is quietly so good. He's not even really a kid. He's in his mid-20s. But it for somebody we don't know much about, no one's given a lot of hype to, he is pretty freaking good. And he found his way into the main event. Makes that pass on every long wait in the heat race last, I guess as late as possible, the last corner, and then he backs it up with another top 10. And this is a guy who was running around like fifth in points last year for a really long time, and he looks like he's going to do that again here in 2025. So I just wanted to give him a shout out because his performances are indicative of a performance like that. I just think he deserves some notoriety. I think he deserves some mention here when, you know, we're going to talk about Deegan and all these kids at the front. That type of riding and that type of consistency deserves more than. Yeah, more than I've probably given him in the past. So we are going to immediately transition to our power rankings as we do. I'm excited for it because I haven't done it in a long time. So what I don't want to want you to do is freak out because you're not going to like some of these. I'm just going to tell you on the front end, some of you listeners are going to be mad at me. And the reason is because I. I am not going to overreact to A one. I know that's the name of Daniel Blair's podcast, Overreaction. I'm not going to overreact. I'm going to take a big picture look at the season last year. Outdoor Supercross smx. What. What do we know? What do we not know? And I'm not going to base this entire thing around A1. I'm just not going to do that. I. I've seen A one too many times and know that it means too little to let it completely change my outlook on what a season's going to be. So just keep that in mind when you hear these. Don't lose your mind. Don't at me, as the, the kids would say. But let's start it off. Number 10 is Justin Barcia. And you got to Remember, Justin Barsha's 2024 season was absolutely horrific, terrible, probably the worst of his career. Injuries, poor results, didn't have a lot of flash, didn't show us a lot. So this, I think, was kind of a solid bounce back to get to where he wants to be. Was it the A1 where he won three or four in a row? Whatever it was? No, it wasn't. But if you were expecting that, yeah, you're. I would just say your head's in the wrong place with Justin Barcia. He's the oldest he's ever been, which is pretty obvious. But I think he's in a kind of a rebuild mode, trying, you know, he's at Alden Baker's now. He's got all new technicians around him and I think he's just trying to find his placement back near the front. So this was a solid step towards that. And the biggest thing he could do to help himself is get the hole shot, put himself in the front where he's comfortable, and then allow himself to be in, in those confines and sort things out and race from the front backwards. That's going to be his best chance at success. Number nine is Justin Cooper. Look, Jacob's going to be fine. The same thing I just said about Justin Varsha is going to be the same for Justin Cooper. He has to get a start to find success in this 450 class. He is not a rider that charges from the back and moves forward. And you're like, well, Justin Cooper was 14th on the first lap and he got to third. That's not going to happen for Justin Cooper. He's never been that guy. He's never going to be that guy. Well, I should say never. But I don't believe that is his trajectory. It's not who he is as a rider. That's not his M.O. doesn't lean into his strength. Strength, set. He is a guy that's gotten hole shots his entire life. And when you get hole shots your entire life, you build tendencies. And that means you don't really develop the passing skills that like an Eli Tomac has, because you haven't had to develop those skills. You are better running at the front and riding defensively and setting really fast laps early on. That's what, that's. That's where he's built his name. That's how he's gotten to this point in his career. So to think that he's going to change all of a sudden. The 450 class, that's foolhardy. That's not going to happen. And he didn't get the fantastic start at a 1, and the results would bear that out. So just watch for that moving forward. If you see Justin Cooper in first, second, third on the first lap, that's exactly the recipe for success for him. It doesn't mean he's going to stay there. Maybe he has a bad race, but his chances of success lie in his first lap positioning. Number eight is Aaron Plessinger. I said Plessinger at the press conference this weekend. I said Plessinger. Now I think it's Plessinger. He told Jason Wigant once that his mother said, or his grandmother pronounced that Plessinger. So that's what he goes off of. So let's go, ap. Let's go. Plessinger. He quietly moved forward and it wasn't a banner weekend. You know, I think he wanted to bring kind of that fire that he had in 2024. But it's going to take starts. When you look at the field this deep and this much talent with this, these few of injuries, you're going to have to start up front. Unless you're just head and shoulders better than everybody, which AP's not. He's as good as most, but he's not way better than everybody. So he's going to have to take advantage of a good start and then kind of do his thing from there. And when you start, you know, whatever. It was 14th, it's going to be hard to move up past six, seven, eight, you know, and he got to ninth, I think. I'm not looking at the results right in front of me, but that's okay. You know, he's. He probably knows that starts are going to be pivotal for his success, and that's probably true for a lot of guys. So I'm kind of giving him like a B plus on the weekend. Wasn't horrible, but I also know that he needs to get a good start and he didn't get the start. So that that's kind of where he landed. He landed probably where he's going to land most weekends if the field stays healthy with with a bad start. Jason Anderson, 7 and. And people are going to freak out, say, why is he seven? He got third, blah, blah, blah. This is where the big picture start. Stuff starts to come in because Jason Anderson, he didn't have a great year last year. He didn't have a great year in 2023 either. So don't let a one completely flip the narrative of what's likely to happen the entirety of 2025. A1 is a good race for him. A2 will be a good race for him. All these west coast rounds that are slippery, low traction environments, those are going to be good for Jason Anderson. That's what he does well, full stop. So it didn't shock me. I actually was telling somebody right before the race that I thought Anderson could win because of all the weirdo dynamics that happen in a 1. Too much pressure, too much expectation. The guys that come in quietly with no pressure tend to excel at a 1, and Anderson was no different than that. We've seen it year in and year out with those types of guys. Ken Rockson is going to be another one. They typically shine at this race because no one's expecting them to do a lot. And it also can be part of their personality. If pressure is not an overarching distraction for them, they can usually show up at this race and ride pretty well. Justin Barcia has been that guy in the past where he kind of shrugged his shoulders at all the expectation. That was Jason Anderson on Saturday night. Hunter Lawrence, this was tough. This six point, you know, he's sixth on this power rankings and he's getting the benefit of 2024. This was not a good night for Hunter. Eleventh, yes, he beat his brother, but if you look at that main event, he did nothing but go backwards. Wasn't a great race. I think he would be the first one to tell you it wasn't a great race. But if you're looking for a silver lining, it's a hell of a lot better than 2024. A1, you know, like it was better than that. So if you're, if you're looking, where are we starting from? Where do we end up? They're starting from a better spot than they were. But no one being, being truthful to themselves could say that this was a good race for Hunter Lawrence. It simply wasn't. He looked like he was fighting the bike. Didn't look comfortable, didn't look like he had the pace. He was getting past. Kind of the guys in front of him checked out and pulled away from him. So they have some work to do. They do. He's, he is an analytical guy. He likes to kind of dissect all the things of a race and look at where he could be better. They're going to have a lot to, to take from this race and work on and we're going to See how they can respond. We're going to see what they can to do to bounce back. As far as he and and Honda HRC, number five is Kenny and second place, great race again, same thing. Think big picture. 2024 wasn't great overall for Kenny. It was okay. He won a race, it was good. Altoids wasn't ideal. You know, he found he was there some like he raced some of them a couple WSX was okay, you know, but Tomac kind of beat him pretty badly at times, you know, when they were both just heads up without crashes. Tomac, I watched him beat him by 10 seconds at times, you know, so it's not like Roczen had come into this race really with a ton of momentum. So I thought he did a great job of blocking out all the noise. He had a horrible qualifying session and going out there and just executing what he knows how to do well, which is get a good start, block out the pressure, forget about it being a one and just ride the way he knows how to do. Do the things he's been doing for the better part of a decade. That's what he did. And he, he kept Chase Sexton honest for a long time. And then once he kind of realized that second place was going to be as good as it was going to get, then you just saw him logging the laps, putting them in and not do anything silly to jeopardize a really strong start to the season. So I thought it was an A grade for Ken Roczen. When no one's really talking about you and you go out and get runner up spot that that's a really solid way to start the season. And that's. It's kind of what we've come to expect from kenny. Think about 2022. He went out and smoked everybody at a one when there wasn't a lot of hype around Kenny coming any. He just yarded everybody. So the, the key for Kenny will be maintaining this level of performance as everybody else starts to figure things out. He's got to stay that 4 is Eytomac and they're gonna be people that are pissed about Tomac being at four. But I mean he got fifth in the race. We all know what he's capable of. We all saw how good he was all day. And he gets that hole shot and the stadium erupts and then everybody's devastated when he crashes on in that going into that right hander. But the most important thing here with Tomac is that he's back. He is back to 2023, three form. He's back to the guy that can go out and win a race anytime the gate drops. And that's what we wanted to see. We wanted to see that level of performance from Eli Tomac. And let's see how that shakes out. Let's see up against, you know, Jet and, and Chase Sexton now, an older, more mature Chase Sexton. Let's see what he's got in the tank against those guys. And I'm ready to say he's there. You know, he hasn't won a race yet. He didn't even get on the podium because he made a big mistake. But if I'm just looking at what the potential is and what level he's bringing to a Saturday, I am, I'm more than okay with saying that he's, he's ready to fight for this championship. And I heard it from more than one person talking to him throughout the weekend. Just, you know, white kind of small talk type stuff. He's the most confident and relaxed they've seen him in years. And that comes from knowing you're ready and knowing kind of where you fit in amongst your peers. That is the quiet confidence, the only way you can really get it. If you're nervous, if you're like, I'm not ready, I don't think I can beat these guys. That's. You get a lot of quietness and a lot of uncertainty, which is what we saw from Chase Sexton last year in his press conferences and interviews. That's not what we're getting from Eli Tomac right now, which is a really positive thing. And he adds a lot to the sport. So good for Eli, good for the sport, good for everybody involved. Unless you're, unless you're trying to win the championship, it's not good for you. Because I think, I think Tomac's here to, to fight for it. Number three is Cooper Webb. And you know, Webb could be, I guess Webb could be four, he could be three. But if you look at Webs season last year, getting runner up in the championship, winning races, he was tied for the championship with only a few rounds to go. Like, then you go back to 20, 23, he was second going into, you know, three rounds to go in the championship. Like, he has been consistently in this fight for a while. And I really like what I'm seeing from Webb. He almost got Jason Anderson at the end of the main event. And if you were just looking for confirmation that he's the same guy and he's going to be there to Fight for it from Webb. You saw that this weekend. You saw that in the main event. Was he the fastest guy? No. And I don't know that there's going to be many weekends where he's the flat out fastest guy. But that's not really what he does. That's not his strategic game plan. I'm sure he'd like to be. He's riding as fast as he can, but I think deep down he knows, like, hey, I'm not going to just blow everybody away with speed here. That's not my strength. Sprint speed and just, you know, I'm going to hole shot and check out. That's. That's really never kind of been his thing. Has he done it? Sure. But that's not the way he's made his money. It's always being there. Relentless, consistency. Racecraft, when it comes down to the last few laps, making sure that you out wit and out strategize everybody else on the track. Don't give points away, don't make the critical mistake. Those are what, those are the things that Cooper Webb does. And I think he's already shown us that he's back and ready to do those things again. Number two, you're gonna hate this. Chase Sexton is number two. I know that leads you to know who number one is and people are going to be so pissed about it. That's okay. I don't really care. I'm not going to freak out about a one. If you have Chase Sexton as your number one, no problem. Totally get it. But I have seen a lot of evidence to say that Jet should still be one and Chase should be two. So Chase is my number two right now. I was very, very reassured by the way Chase was so confident. He wasn't freaking out about the bike. His heat race was picture perfect. The main event, other than the. The stall, was picture perfect. There were no erratic movements. There wasn't a lot of panic in the afternoon. It was just how you draw it up. If you want a calm, structured, well executed A1, Chase Sexton gave you exactly that. So kudos to Chase Sexton. Congratulations. Golf clap all. The thing, you know, whatever way of giving him accolades that you want to do, he deserves every bit of it. Phenomenal. Fantastic opening round performance from Chase Sexton. That's it. Like that. There's not a whole lot more to say is other than you just clap, celebrate them and you move on. That, that was everything you could ever want from your 2023 Monster Energy Supercross Champion. Now that leads us to number one. That leaves us to Jet Warren's Jet is number one. And that's on the backside of having arguably the worst race of his life. And that, you know, injuries and crashes and all take that out. I'm saying performance wise, his pace starts, how he looked like, the eye test, this, all those things, take them all into account. I think this is the worst race of his, of his professional life. You know, maybe when he first got on 250 or something, fine, whatever. But I'm saying the Jet Lawrence that we have come to know, you tell me, you find me a race where he looked worse than that heat race. He moved forward, but it was not, not great. Main event, terrible start, crashed again, lap times weren't great. Didn't even get to the top 10. Didn't get his brother at the end. You tell me a world where Jet Lawrence is healthy and his bike isn't broken, that he doesn't get back to the top 10 in a main event. I can't think of one. I cannot think of a scenario where I would have told you that he doesn't find a way to back to the top 10. I would have almost guaranteed that. You tell me. Okay, he crashed in the first turn. He crashed again early. I'm like, yeah, he still gets like ninth. This wasn't that. So I'm not blaming Jet. I'm blaming that they have a brand new motorcycle and they don't have it anywhere near where they need to get it yet. And this was a theme that we heard from them in November. I talked to Lars Winstrom, I talked to people inside jets camp. I talked to Jet and Hunter themselves. They were struggling with this motorcycle and Supercross right away. Right away. And that seems like they're still struggling. They tested, I don't say a lot in November, but they went to Paris and raced. They tested, they raced in Australia. They were still struggling. And from what I am told, they devoted almost all of December to test, try new things, get the bike sorted and find what they needed to find in December. And clearly they're not there. If you watch them closely, you watch Jet closely in that main event, you could see how uncomfortable he was. That section, that segment where James Stewart, I talk about the bike and then James starts talking about the bike and you see Jet on a straightaway, he kind of gets like a head shake movement and the. And the bars look really unstable. That was the perfect setup to show what jets feeling uncomfortable with is he doesn't know what the bike's really going to do. And if you don't really know what the bike's going to do, it's incredibly hard, or I would even say impossible to go the speed that Jet Lawrence knows how to go. Because racers, when they're at their best, when they're really kind of feeling it, they already, they, they're three steps ahead of what the bike's doing. They already know what the bike's going to do, they've already predicted it, gained it out in their head, and they're thinking about what the next obstacle is to prepare for that. When you don't know what the bike's going to do, you're unsure. You're very nervous about an unexpected reaction from the motorcycle. You can't, you almost are like a few steps back from where you want to be and you're reacting to what the motorcycle is doing versus assuming what it's going to do. And that just slows everything down. These incredibly quick decisions that Jet would be making and, and you look how he's just always ready for everything. He's always over the front and looks so perfect, picture perfect technique all the time. That's because he, he is in 100% agreement and synergy with the motorcycle. I didn't see that, especially in the nights, the night racing, I didn't see that at all. And it made me believe. He's very unsure of what, how the bike is going to react to different situations. Bumps, corners, rough sections, lack of traction, all those things. So they need to, they got to sort that out. I'm sure they're trying, I'm sure they know, I'm sure there were some late night meetings last night into how are we going to go about this? What is our plan of attack? What are we going to test? What parts do we need to make change, try. Do we need to go back to the drawing board? Did we go the wrong direction? Were there things that we tried that we disregarded, that we need to go. All those things probably are being talked about last night and today. You know, Honda HRC is incredibly capable and competent and they will not rest until this is fixed. My guess though is that they don't know how to fix it right now and that that's the challenging part. If you know what the problem is, you can build parts, you can test, you can, you can work to address it when you don't really know what direct direction to go to fix it. That is so tough to handle psychologically because you're just scratching your head going, I don't even know where to start. To fix it. You know, if you have a problem and you simply can't fix it, like this frame is no good or something, that's one thing. I don't think that's what this is. I think they're just, they have, you know, for Honda, they have a million variables, a million different things that they can try to change it. That almost makes the job more difficult at times. It gives you options. It's great. It makes it more likely that you're going to fix the problem, but it can make it more difficult to fix it. Well, I say make it more complicated to fix it because you have so many directions to go and you don't know which is one. And I'll give you another example. Jet at the press conference said, yeah, you know, when we try something, we try one part and then that changes another thing that we liked and makes that part not work as well. You know, we'll like one thing, but that there's a side effect to that which makes this other thing that we liked not work as well. And that's the, that's the challenge of testing is every action has an op or a reaction, right? Like whatever that Einstein theory is or whatever, every action has an opposite or equal reaction. That's what testing that in a nutshell, that's what testing is, is you, you change the races in the forks. Well, that has an effect on the shock because you change the, the tilt of the way the fork rake angle is. And now all the angles that are placed on the, you know, whether, whether it's the linkage or the shock or the ride height or all those things get adjusted by default because you change something else. And that's, that's what they're going to have to fight this week is working through those things quickly. They got to fix this fast. Like, they can't go into San Diego that off that uncomfortable the way they were or the way they looked. I don't want to speak for them. Maybe Jet was like, yeah, it's, I'm not that far off. It's fine. I got to get a better start. But we're close. Maybe. Maybe. I, I'm assuming a lot here. I'm mostly going off of what I saw in jets riding and Hunters riding, that they didn't really look like they were anywhere close to the comfort level that I am used to seeing from them. So maybe we'll hear from them going into the weekend about, you know, where they're at. If, but just going off the eye test of me watching them, they look like they have a lot of. A lot to figure out this, this coming week. And I believe they will. I. I believe in the staff and the technicians they have over there and the capabilities they have to. To figure this out. But it's the first time we've seen them scrambling in a long time. It truly is the first time we've seen them scratching their heads in a very long time. And I mean, it's cyclical. It happens to everybody. Look at Chase Sexton all of 2024. The entire T of 2024, that was Chase Sexton. So it's, it's not a foreign, foreign concept. Look at Cooper Webb when he got on the Yamaha in SMX outdoors in SMX in 2023. Terrible. Like, nowhere close. Not even, not even in the realm like he was getting, like 11th. He was battling with. Well, I don't want to say he was battling in 11th with Phil Nicoletti in Chicago. So this is not anything new to any of the riders and teams. We just really haven't seen it with Jet. So that's a little bit. That's a little bit new there. So don't panic, don't freak out. They've just got. They just. They have some things to work through here. And again, for the fourth time, I'm going to say it. They don't have a lot of time to do it. And you've got to know that they were already working on this. This. This isn't like November, December were picture perfect calm. They're like super dialed in and they come in and everything goes wrong that they want. That wasn't this. They've been trying to get this bike figured out for a while now, which tells me it makes it a little bit more concerning because they've already worked through a lot of possible solutions and haven't gotten there. And the proof that they haven't gotten there we saw on a Saturday night with 11th and 12th for the Lawrence brothers. So that's it for this week. I appreciate all of you listening to this again. Don't. Don't take too much away from A one. You. You can start to build a picture of how you think things are. But again, if you draw conclusions from A one, more times than not, you're going to be made to look foolish. That's just how this goes. It's how it's always been and I don't see a reason why it's going to be any different in 2025. So thank you to all the sponsors again. I seriously couldn't do it. My expenses, you know, everything else. I couldn't do it without them. So thank you to Guts Racing, Works Connection TL Speed Shop, Grant Stone Boots Pro, Glow Wash, Firepower and Fire Racing. Thank you again, and we will talk to you. We'll talk to you after San Diego. See you.