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 Co. Grandstone Boots and Fly Racing welcome to the Industry Seating podcast. It is the week after the San Diego round which was round two and I'll be honest, I wanted to get this out on Sunday. Didn't do it. But we're here, it's still early in the week and we're going to talk about San Diego and look ahead towards Anaheim. 2 the return to Angel Stadium where I feel like I've been a lot over the last couple of months. But I have been there a lot over the last couple of months so that checks out. Before we jump straight into San Diego, let's thank the sponsors of this podcast. GUTS Racing. Thank you to everything that they do for me. They have the best collection of seat covers and custom graphics. They have it for power sports and E bikes and Surrons. They have custom seats, full seats for like Kawasaki's Betas, what have you. They are the one stop shop for anything graphics or seat related in any way, shape or form. Works Connection thank you to them and I have a cool note from Eric at Works Connection. The top five first through fifth in San Diego we're all using the Pro Launch Start device and I've been talking to you about that that product for a long time. Monster Star, Yamaha use it, Factory Honda uses it. Why do you think that is? It's because it works. It's easy and it's reliable and for those guys they can use anything they want literally when it comes to products they have their their choice of anything and they can get paid by anyone to use anything. And if they didn't like something that someone else made, they would make it themselves. They have that capability. So for them to choose to use Works Connection says more than I could ever tell you. So if you are ever in the market for anything like that, especially the Pro on start device, you think about all the other products they have in their collection. Please reach out to Works connection go to worksconnection.com and at worksconnection on social media. TL Speed Shop race rental race rentals.com is their newest offering and they have basically a way you can race UTVs and trucks at the biggest off road races in the world. And I've been talking to about this for a long time. Whether it's the Mint 400 Sonora Rally, Baja 1000, Baja 500. They have it all. They're plug and play and having the ability to call them up and coordinate to race a trophy truck like think about like a trophy like R4, you can race like can am. You can race side by sides. Of course, like their X3s, they're 525 horsepower. Think about how fast a side by side is with 525 horsepower. That's like a, that's like a super high end car has 525 horsepower. So those things absolutely rip. But I just, I think about the details and the. Well start with the money, but all of the coordination and attention to detail you'd have to have and the length of logistics you'd have to go to to be able to do this race type of racing on your own. These guys can set all of that stuff up for you. So you can reach out to the team there. Jason Cobb and his whole crew, they have a crew that goes to all these races and they will basically handle all of the details for you. Everything from entry fee to fuel to chase vehicles, their mechanic crew, the you get to pre run the whole course, everything that it basically involves. So you can reach out to them@tlspeed shop.com or race-rentals.com or at 928-415-1045. So thank you to them. Grandstone Boots of course has me always looking good when I'm out on the town. So check out GrantstoneShoes.com and last but not least, Fly Racing. We have a brand new set of limited edition gear coming this Friday. So I can't tell you any more than that at the moment, but check that out. Thank you to all of them. And without further ado, let's talk San Diego. And we were at Snapdragon Stadium. And for those who have been living under a rock for the last three years, we moved from Petco back out to Snapdragon Stadium, which is probably. I was trying to, I was looking at it this weekend, trying to eyeball it. It's probably 500 yards from where Qualcomm was, maybe a thousand yards. It's not far. I mean you could see where Qualcomm used to sit. And if you've been there enough, you know where, like where the parking lot kind of was, the stadium was. And it's all filled in now, so it's not easily recognizable. But the way that it comes off of Friars Road and all those things are super easy landmarks to reference from. And it's Literally just across the way. So there's a lot of nostalgia and familiarity being in that little area. And if you're, if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about, like hotel circle and that whole Mission Valley arena, or I shouldn't say arena, but area is what made, you know, that that's San Diego Supercross. That there's just a vibe when you get to that little area that screams San Diego Supercross because it was held there for decades, you know, and. And that was the only reason I'd ever go to that specific area of San Diego is for this race. And so I got all those feelings back this weekend. And I really like Snapdragon. I like, you know, it's new, it's smaller, so it's a little bit more intimate. And it just has, you know, the modern amenities you want and some of the cool things about new stadiums. It has the, the tailgate factor, you know, that's because we're not downtown. You're not dealing with all the, the homeless things. And it's a little sketchy, I'd say maybe a lot sketchy down by Petco. So there, there are significant upsides to it. You couple that with this San Diego race has decent dirt. You know, I know other people were saying it was super slippery, which I understand it can be slippery, but there were other sections that were super tacky. And when you contrast that to, like, Anaheim, Anaheim's not very tacky at all, especially at night. So I, I walk the track after the race and, you know, if I have to choose, I would choose San Diego. Every single time between Anaheim and San Diego, thinking about the 250 class, I mean, juju boomer, he is for real, you know, and I can't say that I necessarily saw this coming. Now, did I think he was pretty good? Sure. Did he really show us some potential in Charlotte? Absolutely, he did. Did I think he was going to come out here and go two one and take the points lead at the first two rounds? Absolutely not. That is not what I thought would happen. But congratulations to him. I don't claim to always know who's going to make it and who's not there. You know, there are people that are. That's their job to hire these kids and tell you if they're going to make it or not. And look at the track record for most of these kids. They don't have any idea. There's so much chance and luck and things going your way and just a lot, you know, it doesn't Always have to be your fault if things don't necessarily pan out, especially if it's early on in their career. But for juju, he's, he's taken a step here. There, there's just simply no other way to say it other than he has taken a significant step in his career. And that does not mean he's going to win this championship. He certainly can. He has the points lead, but it doesn't mean that he's going to really all that it means is that he has solidified himself as a legitimate 250 Supercross contender and likely outdoors as well. And when you do that, he is going to get re signed somewhere. I don't know if it'll be at Red Bull ktm. I don't know, you know, what the future opportunities are for Red Bull ktm. They're, they're in the middle of a restructuring in Europe so I don't, I don't know what that's going to look like on the backside of that. And if anybody tells you that they do, they're probably fooling themselves or lying to you. So that kind of doesn't matter though when it comes to juju, he, he would be able to get on probably any team he wants in 2026. Now the variables there are how much money is he going to get, how long of a contract is he going to get? Like those are all the things that now he has leverage over. Where I would say a year ago it really wasn't the case, that wasn't necessarily true. He would have been much more subject to availability and budgets and all those things. Where now he's, you know, he's not Deegan for sure, but he's much more in the catbird seat as far as having some sort of control over his direction and pathway moving forward, which is, it's a great place to be. He's going to be able to say no to teams and offers he doesn't want. And a lot of times many routers, myself included, had to say yes to offers that we didn't want because there wasn't another offer. It was the best available even though we knew it wasn't great. And there were going to be a lot of challenges and downsides to that offer. You didn't really have a choice if you want to continue racing at any sort of high level. So this is all fantastic for juju. He's making himself a lot of money. And when I say that, I don't mean necessarily right now, which he is, you know, think about A win. He probably made 50 or 60 grand on Saturday. But like contract wise, you know he's, he's going to go from, I'm going to say all in type contract being like in the 200 to 250 range is what I would guess he's on right now. That's a pure guess. It could be 150, it could be 275, but I'm pretty sure it's somewhere in that range. Now he's going to get up into that 3 or 4 range. Especially if he can stay like at Red Bull KTM and do his own gear deal. That will be really nice for him because you figure he'll probably get that 2 5th 250k ish range from KTM maybe more, I don't know. And then you know, 150 to 250 for gear. So now you're talking 400 plus just between gear and bike that that starts to make real money. That, that's money where he can start saving a lot. He can buy himself a nice house. You hate to use the word life changing money but when you sign, start signing contracts like that, it becomes, it becomes life changing money. You can start planning out your financial future when you get deals like that. And then that's not even calculating bonus money which I kind of already touched on. So a lot of positives in the life of juju Boomer. I after, after round two, Jordan Smith is next up and I don't have a lot to talk about with Jordan. It's been a little quiet but really good quiet. And he's gone 3, 2 so far. And I wrote working and I underlined it like three times because he hasn't won a race. He's not, he doesn't have all the headlines. It's been a little bit subdued. You know, no one's running around scream in Jordan's name. But if you look at the results and you look at the way he's riding and you look at the points, he's sitting right there. And this is a guy who's been in several championship runs and he hasn't won any of them. Fair and fair point. But if you think about his age, his maturity level, the scenarios he's seen and also just the, the desire because he hasn't been able to get to do it, how much determination he's going to have to get this job done against, I don't want to use the word weaker field, that's not fair. But going up against RJ and Kitchen last year, it's It's, I would say, a better setup than that is. Right. Is that fair to say? This is a better setup? With Deegan not having a great start to the series and Bowmer basically a rookie, you know, second year, but I mean, not. Doesn't have really the experience, especially as championship leader. I think Jordan would like his chances in this scenario versus 2024. I could be wrong, but that's how I see it. Next up is Hayden Deegan. And on the podium, this was the most bummed, subdued, downtrodden Hayden Deegan that I've ever witnessed. I've never seen Hayden Deegan with that type of temperament, mindset, lack of anything to say in my life. Never seen it. And to be fair, I haven't spent a ton of time around him, but I've been around him on the podium a lot. I've been to his house, which is probably more than most people can say. I've been near him like opening ceremonies a lot, like weekend after weekend after weekend. So I have a little bit of a feeling of his personality and his. His normal kind of just the way he is on an average standard day. This was, you know, you don't want to use the word depressed or anything. That's too much. But he was pretty down on himself. And it. It caught me by surprise because I didn't really expect it. It wasn't like he got 14, he got third, and it wasn't the end of the world, but he was. He was taking it pretty hard, taking on the chin there. So let's see what he brings to A two with that type of thought process after San Diego. Because A one, I thought he was kind of like, still himself. He's kind of like, yeah, whatever, I'll be fine. This one seemed like it hit home a little bit more that now we're two races in and it really hasn't gone the way he and everybody else thought it was going to. So I'm very curious to see what happens at A two for Deegan. One, because of the results and two, because of just the way. I don't know, just something in his eye. He didn't. He didn't look like. Didn't look himself. And I'm sure he's bounced back. He's a mentally strong kid. He's got really, really strong people and great parents and all those strong people in his corner, great parents, all those things that are going to keep him in check. It just caught me by surprise a little bit seeing that side of him up there. Joe Shimota oh, man, this is brutal for him. And I, I like Joe Shimota. I didn't really have any opinion at all, but the more I've been around him, the more I like him. He's just so nice and polite and he's Japanese, you know, that's if you know any Japanese people, if you've been to Japan, it's so on brand for them to be this courteous and well mannered and polite. That is just, that's their culture. And Joe fits that to a tee. And I was really bummed to see him suffer that injury and I was incredibly impressed to see him tough it out and get a seventh. I mean, look at those pictures of his hand. If you, if you haven't seen it, I don't know how you couldn't, but go on his Instagram. They're, they're everywhere online. That is brutal. And you think about having that injury on your hand and then having to hold on to the handlebars as tight as those guys have to do. Use the clutch and with the, you know, it's not like you just grab it once and never touch it again. Like he's got to use it in the corners and use it to build RPM and manage power and all those things under that much pain and strain on his, on his fingers. Like, that is a incredibly strong statement as far as mental and physical toughness by Joe. And I don't think we've really seen a lot of that. You know, you could argue. And I tried to bring this to attention a few times at the early opening, at the opening SMX playoff rounds because he had come back from that, that collarbone, it was right at the front, right, right on the podium. Right away I was like, man, that's, that's really impressive. Like, I don't even know if you'd be able to race and you're a podium guy. So maybe I overlooked the toughness that was right in front of my face in September, but I'm not overlooking it now. That was some pretty tough stuff. And he's a quiet guy. You're never going to hear him be boisterous or braggadocious or any of those things, but that kid has some heart in him. And if, if no one else is going to talk about it, I'm going to, because he deserves it. When you're toughing out an injury like that and not only tough it out, you get seventh, it's hard to do. So good job to Joe Shimoda. You have made a new fan out of me. Cole Davies, this kid's legit. And you could argue that he's okay. Well, you know, he's not beating Bomary. Well, Palmer has a whole year of experience. Remember, you're talking 2023 SMX, next graduate to 2024 SMX, next graduate. So I think he's right on schedule to be winning races in 2026. I don't see a reason why not. Look at how good that kid's riding. The speed, the confidence, the starts, the tech, technical prowess. Like, he looks. He so looks the part already. And I'll just be honest, I got this one wrong. I thought Starr was rushing him out there too early. I did not think he was ready to be on this stage like this. And I'll just, I'll just take the L. I was wrong. He is far better than I anticipated that he would be. And kudos to him. He has obviously been putting in a ton of hard work and you know, his parents sacrificed a lot to have him here and he is delivering so great job to Cole Davies. The last 250 note I have is on time. Master pool. And this is, this is bummer. You know, I, I have been of the mind that supercross is not necessarily something that he's ever going to excel in. Doesn't mean he can't be top 10, doesn't mean he can't be top 5. I'm talking Excel. I'm talking be a championship contender. I'm talking about podiums and winning races. I just don't know if that's going to happen. I have no reason to think that it's going to happen. I have not seen it. I have not seen glimpses that would point to incredible improvement. I've just kind of seen the same, which is not bad, it's not terrible. But he's far better outdoors, far better. And that's really the only point that I have to make is could this end up being a blessing in disguise because he's got this finger injury that he's going to have to recover from. He's going to be out for a while. And do they shift their focus away from supercross and just say, you know what, just think about motocross. Start riding motocross. We hired you to race motocross, and for those of you who are listening, going, they didn't. He's supercrossed. I'm like, I know, I know. But I'm just telling you, they hired him for motocross. That's just what this is. And it's okay. It's not an indictment. It's not an insult. No one's taken a shot at Masterpool saying that they hired him for his outdoor skills and prowess. That's, that's just facts. And it's, it's okay to admit facts. There's nothing wrong with it. Because you, if you disagree, if you're listening to this and you're like, that's not true. That's not okay. You tell me then, if he wasn't as good as he is at motocross, if he had his Supercross results on his resume, would Mitch Payton even consider for one waking second to hire him? You tell me. Hint. The answer is no. So that's all, that's all you really need to know or think about is motocross is where they expect things from him. That's why he got the ride. So if that's, if that's true, then why don't we lean into that? Why don't we make his job as easy as possible and allow him to go back to wherever he needs to be, if that's Texas or if that's Southern California or wherever that plan ends up being, and allow him, once he's ready, to get to work on outdoors and allow him to be ahead of the game where everybody else is coming in and they just pivoted off of Salt Lake Supercross, Ty Masterpool is going to come in like a house on fire. And I shouldn't use that phrasing. I know California, but he's going to come in overly prepared versus where everybody else is. So I don't know that that's just my take on it. I never thought that Supercross was going to be this huge success anyway. So if everything else is neutral, then allow him to be as best as humanly possible when it comes time to show up at fox Raceway. The 450 power rankings and I caught some grief last week. Some people weren't thrilled with me about having Jet at the top last week, and I feel like I got vindicated a little bit by jets ride this weekend. But I'm not apologetic. I'm fine with it. Because it's not a singular look at a weekend. It's always going to be big picture. Now, having said that, I did make adjustments this week and it wasn't because I got yelled at. I just don't want to make rash decisions. If Jet doesn't look good in one weekend, I'm not going to fundamentally change my approach or my outlook on the sport as a whole. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to be victim of the moment and go crazy on, on my settings. I just will not do that. I don't think that's fair because I've, I've been out there racing in one weekend. It just may not go your way and you just have to reset and get back after it. And then the next weekend you're like, oh, yeah, we're fine. Like, it's. We're good. I don't know what the hell I was doing last weekend, but this is normal again. And off you go. So anyway, having prefaced all that, let's start at number 10 and it's going to be Justin Cooper. Now. I didn't see much of Justin Cooper on the weekend. I really didn't. I saw him on the racetrack, but I didn't follow him or watch him. I didn't do any of that. Maybe I should have because the only cool thing that I saw when I did was him doing that quad into the corner before the 3, 4. That was really cool. And I wondered if anybody was going to do it. I kept looking at it, looking at it, I'm like, is anyone going to jump this thing? And yeah, he was the only person that I saw do it, which is. That's cool. But I mean, the results aren't really there though. If you look at how his season has gone so far, it's been okay. So, so. But nothing, nothing outlandish. No real flashes or, you know, where everybody stands up. Holy cow, we forgot about Jacob. You know, we haven't seen that quite yet, but I will qualify that by saying, last year it wasn't until a 2 where he really broke out time qualifying practice sessions. He was at the top all afternoon long. That was the first sign we saw. So maybe, maybe it comes again at A two. That's. That's really the only saving grace. And I shouldn't even say saving grace. It's not like I'm condemning him. I just, I haven't seen anything really jump off the page yet from Justin Cooper. Number nine is ap and he had a horrible race. I think he got. I don't know what he hurt, but it's pretty beat up. He is going to try to race this coming weekend, but he is extremely sore, he said, and not a great way to start your season. A quiet ninth at a one and then a DNF with with a crash at A two. That's going to, you know, likely won't let him practice very much. He's just going to Be doing all the things to try to get the soreness out this week instead of getting better, you know, and I guess that's pretty self explanatory. But every racer during the week is thinking about what went on the week that weekend. Okay, how can we improve? Is it my technique? Is it the motorcycle? Is it. Am I a little bit too slow in these sections? Let's hone in on those things. When we're doing specific work, you know, they're going to do their motos, they're going to do their bicycle rides, all that stuff is routine. But when you have these scheduled times to work on things, that's when you can make improvements. And for ap, he's not going to probably do any of that. He's probably going to be an ice bass and you know, getting massages and all those things, trying to flush lactic acid and allowing his body to heal. So he's not going to benefit from any of, any of the things that these other guys are. Plus he's just going to get out of his routine, his weekly routine, which, you know, that's not great for anybody either. You maybe feel a little bit more rusty. You know, you're just not progressing. If anything, you're just kind of treading water. Number eight, Justin Barsha. He's been all right, you know, it's fine. I think better than last year. He almost falls into this Justin Cooper thing where he's not jumping off the page, he's not capturing headlines, but it's okay, fine, top tens, no big deal. Do your thing, you know, can he, can he get a new contract and stay there? Time will tell, but I think he's, he's been fine. Just a little quiet as far as Barcia. And unless you're going to count him revving the bike wide open over every jump, which he still does at 30 something years old, over the triples, over the rhythm sections, just wide open on the rev limiter, in the air. It's. It's crazy to watch. And I made the joke. His, his oldest child, I think that too. I'm not sure if his wife had the second one yet, but they're gonna have two kids. When he starts teaching the oldest one, his son, how to start riding, he's probably. I wondered if he's gonna have him like holding the Stasik wide open in the air, like this is how you do it. And the kid's going to be like, but I'm in the air. It doesn't do anything. He's like, this is Just how you do it when you're in the air, you hold it wide open until you land. So that'll be fun to watch. I want to see if that. That comes to fruition. Number seven is Jason Anderson, and not a good day. Sick under the weather, not a good main event. I think he got tired. His body just gave out. And that was not at all what he had planned after a really strong A1. So let's not read too much into it. Let's just assume that he'll get back to health and bounce back pretty quickly for A two. Number six is Hunter Lawrence. And this was a much better day even though he was sick, similar to Jason Anderson. I don't think they got it from each other because they literally hate each other, but they were both sick. Hunter had like a mask on all day trying not to get other people sick. And I'm not even going to talk about masks. It was one thing I think was underreported. And then once the COVID thing happened, everybody kind of figured it out. But I used to like when people from Japan would wear masks. If you've never seen this, Japanese and Asian people wear masks a lot if they are sick. And they were doing it out of politeness to try to not get other people sick. And I always thought it was like they were trying to avoid the air from everyone else. That's not it. They're trying to prevent other people from getting sick. Well, Hunter had a mask on like that a lot of the day. Like face covering on. On Saturday, trying to. Because he has to be around team members and staff and other. Like, you don't want to take the whole team down by getting them sick. But I thought he did an incredibly good job of getting fit. And you think about holding off Sexton on the last lap, fighting, you know, probably feeling a little weak. I thought it was a great job by Hunter. Kudos to him for finding a way to overcome not only the adversity they faced at a one, but also, yeah, just not being 100% Saturday. Number five, Ken Roczen. And he's gone, you know, two, four through two races, which is. It's really good. And he was really close to going 2, 3 at the first two races. And the only thing I really wanted to mention with Kenny is I think he poked the bear on Saturday night. And when I. What I mean by that is he was all over Cooper Webb and it looked like Cooper Webb was kind of, I don't want to say done, but I think he was ready to kind of give up the spot. He just didn't have the pace. He hasn't. He didn't get to prepare in December like he wanted to. And I think he was just like, man, I don't think I can hold him back here anymore. And Roxanne was waiting everywhere like he Rockston was certainly ready to go faster than Webb was. And then Roxanne went in and made contact with Webb pretty aggressively. And I think that woke Webb up. I think whatever funk he was in or whatever fatigue he was feeling, that contact when Roxanne hit him just blasted all that off. And, you know, it sounds crazy that that can do that, but you get this adrenaline spike. And Cooper Webb, I truly believe it's just like, oh, no, no, hell no. Like, that's not. That's not gonna go down like that. Like, you're not gonna come in and just knock. Knock me out of the way or t bone me like, no, sir, you got another thing coming. And it gave Cooper Webb a second wind. And if you know anything about those two racing dynamics, the longer that Cooper Webb can kind of stay in the game with Kenny, the odds of him beating Kenny go up. So you could say, well, whatever. He had like the whole half of the race to hold him off, he wasn't going to be rejuvenated for that long. True. But for Webb, he knows all he's got to do is withstand that assault. And if he can get Kenny to kind of fall back into his rhythm, he's all but got Kenny beat. That is what he's been doing to Ken Rockson for years and years and years. He just knows the later he can drag him into the main event, the better his odds are of getting to the checkered flag before Ken Rockson does. And he did exactly that. He just got some momentum, got some adrenaline, got some energy, dropped his lap times for a few more laps, held Kenny back, and that was all it took. Kenny lost that drive. He lost that forward push. He lost touch with Tomac and jet, fell into Cooper Webb's pace. And then it became this mano a mano type thing. And you're going to take web every time in that scenario, or at least the math would tell you to take web every time. So just one of those things where I think Kenny made. Kenny made a mistake, and I don't think he realized he was doing. I think he was frustrated and he was like, dude, you gotta get out of my way. And he tried to get aggressive, and that was exactly the thing he couldn't do because his best friend was complacency from Webb and a feeling of dread that he couldn't hold him off and instead he inspired him to dig deeper. And that is a death knell to anybody racing Cooper Webb. All that said, Roczen's been great so far with two four finishes, so kudos to him. Number four is Cooper Webb and I kind of just touched on all the things, so I won't spend a lot of time on Webb, but I think he's being slept on a little bit. You know, he's gone 4:3 through two races, he's four points out of the championship and no one's really talking about him. So I'm not here to tell you that Webb's going to win the title. I don't know, I don't really care. But I think if you, if you're counting him out because he was like 15 seconds down in the main event on Saturday, I think you are doing so precariously. So I think it's way too early. I think he's far too close in the points and he's been far too good through two rounds. And it's like what I said already a couple times this week on shows. If you think that we've seen the best of Cooper Webb at Anaheim in San Diego. When has that ever been true? Like when in the history of a series did we get the best version of Cooper Webb in the first couple of rounds? Like, that's just not reality. That's not how he operates. So if he looks this good now, I like his odds for looking pretty damn good later. And that's going to be a, that's going to be a really fun dynamic to watch unfold. Number three is Chase Sexton. And coulda, woulda, shoulda, man, he got a good start. That was one of the most poorly executed first laps I've ever seen. Absolutely terrible. From Chase Sexton. He wrote he doubles the triple, which I get it, he probably didn't think he could make it. He wasn't sure if the guy in front of him was going to jump. But he didn't jump and then the guys behind him did and Dylan Fran is almost landed on him. I mean all most, and I'm sure most of you have seen that. I don't need to rehash it, but good grief, would that have been bad? I give Dylan Frantis so much credit for the midair body English bike manipulation. All those things to not land on Sexton. That was super high level maneuvering and avoidance by Ferrandus. He had to blow through tough walks and all sorts of things. After he landed, like, I just. My hat goes off to Ferrandis for saving himself and saving Chase Sexton there. So good job to Chase Sexton. Sorry to Dylan Ferrandis. I got confused trying to read my notes. But the rest of that for Chase was a mess. You know, he almost gets landed on, he goes down the next section, then he falls over in a corner of his own accord. And I would say that maybe getting landed on kind of threw him off and then he fell over because he was recoiling from that. But all that before, he almost got landed off and terrible. He got a good start and then went immediately backwards and then fell. It was just. I mean, Chase Sexton is simply better than that. He is a better rider than doing what he did on that first lap. And to his credit, he called himself out. He just said, I wasn't ready to go. I didn't have, you know, wasn't locked in. I didn't have like my sense of urgency and all the things like you just have to kind of lock yourself into the right frame of mind to go racing. And he wasn't there. And he just got shuffled back immediately because of that. And we'll, we'll see how he adjusts, reacts and yeah, positions himself accordingly for A two, but he is number three. He is one point out of the points lead, so all those things are still true. That was just not a good first lap. The rest of it was fine. He rode really well. He had the third fastest lap and he almost got Hunter Lawrence for fifth, which would have had him tied for the points lead. So all was not lost. The sky is not falling, just Dylan Ferrandis was falling out of the air. So let's move on. Chase Sexton's been really good. I'm not ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater. That was just a really, really narrow mission to the entire series. Taking a hard left turn, number two. Everybody asked for it. I shouldn't cave. I shouldn't cave. I should just stick to my guns. But I moved to Jet to two. I did it. You guys happy? I'm really not. I think jets should probably still be one, but I'm doing it. I'm doing it. And the only guy I haven't talked about yet is Tomax, you know, who's won. But for Jet, you know, this was a really nice bounce back. He looked good, dominated as a heat race. And the only reason I don't have him at one is because Tomac Was able to pass him, pull away and then hold him off. And that was a. That was just a wildly impressive ride. And I think we were very close to seeing Tomac win the two, the first two rounds of the series. And I think Tomac is back to the form he was on. And when he left the series in 23, he was the best rider alive. I think when you factor in supercross and motocross and I think he is backed to that level and I don't know if he's the best rider alive. I think Jet has a really solid argument to make in that battle between who's best. But I'm going to give the nod to Tomac for this week out of respect. I think he deserves to get the nod this week. And that is not a slight against Jed. If anybody, you can just watch the TV shows, you can probably tell that I'm a pretty big fan of Jet. You know, he is, he's nice off the bike, all that stuff, but that's not really what I care about. When I watch him ride, I just can't believe the things he does and the way he does them. I could just never imagine being able to do some of the things. And we haven't seen a lot of that in 2025. I understand, but I've been watching it for a few years and you know, two races of being a little uncomfortable on a new motorcycle is not going to change. Dozens of races I've seen him race where I was just like jaw dropping type stuff. And yes, Tomac pass on that outside of Jet was jaw dropping stuff. That is, that was very much that exact thing. So it's not a exclusive feeling that I have for Jet. Tomac was shockingly good in the early laps and really the whole race, you know, Jet kind of figured out the pace, figured out the lines and was able to go with him. But make no mistake, Tomac is back. You know, it doesn't mean he's going to win the title. There are no guarantees. But I think he is back to form and we should put any other talk to bed. Now the question will be, can he do this every week? Does he have any strange rides? And for those who are saying, well, yeah, he hasn't done that on the Yamaha, I would disagree. You know, if you look at Tampa in 2023, he had a really strange ride. He lost by like 20 seconds. He got fifth and he just really had nothing for anybody. None of the guys at the front, which were Sexton and Webb, he had nothing to, to Give those guys as far as fight. And I don't, I don't know if we're going to get that type of ride, but that's, that's the type of ride I'm referring to. I'm not talking about getting 12th or 13th with no real answer. I'm talking about getting 5th or 6th where nothing seemed to really be wrong. He just had no pace, no urgency and no intensity. That's, that's what I'm wondering if we're going to get some more of. But that's our top 10. There are a couple of honorable mentions. Malcolm Stewart, he's been around the top 10 both weeks, battled through some adversity a certain way. Round one, Jorge Prado, I mean, when you look at his results, what'd he go? He's gone 1412. Like, it's not anything to write home about. There's, there's nothing to praise here. I'm just keeping him on the radar because this is what I wanted him to do. I wanted him to stay off the ground, which he hasn't done. He's crashed both weekends, so I'll check myself there. But don't hurt yourself and continue to learn, get better and move forward. And if you've listened to Jason Wigan on our race reviews, he's basically said, Kawasaki has told him, we don't care if you beat any factory riders at all. We don't care. We think in 20, 26, 27, 28, 29, then we'll start applying some pressure as far as, hey, we need you to be up there. But right now it's anything but pressure. They, they are not giving him any sort of mandate or, or tapping them on the shoulder and say, hey, you need to be better. That is not the case, nor will it be the case in 2025 for Supercross, so don't worry about that. And I, I 100% think that's the right approach with him. There should be no pressure. It should just be, hey, get out there, get good starts, and this is your time to figure things out. This is your mulligan season, where we don't really care how you do. We just don't want you to hurt yourself, because that's just going to set you back. So results have not been there. But, I mean, look at the field. The field is stacked, you know, we don't really have any injuries yet to speak of, and it's a really, really tough field to be anywhere, anywhere near the top five. You know, like, that's, that's a really Tough ask at the moment. And the last one was Ferrandis. Nice bounce back. You know not results don't jump off the page or anything but I mean that was pretty brutal a one to miss the main event. I think it was the first main event he's ever missed. So to get back out there and not kill Chase Sexton was yeah at least back in back in the fight a little bit. So that's it for this week. Thank you again to all of our sponsors. Guts Racing check them out gutsracing.com and yeah there's a ton of things you can check out their seats they have I don't know if you guys are into Surrons but those are those things are pretty awesome but check those out. TLSpeedShop.com you heard me mention all the stuff over at Race- rentals.com that's their newest their newest offering where you can get you can sign up to rent be a part of any racing for trophy trucks. That's pretty damn cool. TLSP I mentioned that works connection all the new products they have and of course the pro launch start device top five all top five in the 450. That's insane and so think about the type of performance that they have with that item and I think it was over half of the 450 main event used it as well. Pretty going off memory but that that sounds right but go to worksconnection.com and get yourself one today. Grandstone Boots and fly Racing Check out our newest LE line on Friday. That's it. We will talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to these. I apologize they're it's coming out on a Tuesday and not on Sunday but I will do better See you.