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Jason Thomas
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 Guts Racing Pro, Glow Wash Works Connection, Fast Foundry, TL Speed Shop, Grandstone Boots and Fly Racing. Welcome to the Industry Seating podcast. My name is Jason Thomas and it is Sunday, April 20th. Yeah, that sounds right. It's Easter Sunday. Coming to you. Just finished up the Racer X Pulpamax race review with myself and Steve Mathis and Jason Wygant and it's the first video one we've ever done. So I'm gonna back that up with my own podcast where I'm steering the ship, talking about what I want to talk about. And we'll do our top 10 power rankings, we'll talk a little 250s and then we'll move on to our, our week heading into Pittsburgh. Before we get too far into this, let's thank the sponsors of this podcast. Thank you to all of them for being on board guts racing works connection tl speed shop with their subsidiary race-rentals.com I have a brand new sponsor. It's actually a friend of mine. If you're ever wondering like how I've gotten into shape, I've really just gotten stronger and fitter over the last few years. My friend Chris Geffen is a trainer. He's worldwide but he lives here in Boise, but he has gyms all over the world and, and he has a supplement company called Unmatched Supplements. And I'm going to tell you a little bit about that then I'm going to introduce a new product to the podcast each week. But I want to thank Chris for, yeah, let me be a part of it. He has taught me so much about fitness and longevity and just staying young as you get older and all those, all those things. So thank you to Unmatched Supplements, Grant Stone Boots and Fly Racing. Thank you to all of them. So let's talk some 250s here. Now going in. This has been kind of a crazy series if you really think about just the ups and downs and what, you know, all the, the craziness that's gone on. Because we started out with Max Anstey, he was a story. And then Levi Kitchen was like, no, no, I'm in this thing. Remember that red flag incident in Detroit? Kitchen steals some spotlight there. But it still felt like it was kind of ansys to lose. And then, man, did he ever lose it. That that crash and Birmingham ended his Supercross series. He'll be back for pro motocross it looks like, but yeah, and then, you know, it kind of got blown wide open. You know, kitchen had already departed the series at Daytona. Then Nancy leaves a week later and now it's this three way battle where VL had a 10 point lead going into Foxborough. Then he kind of, you know, takes a dump on his championship. That's pretty horrible visual there, but I mean, you get dead last at foxborough, you get 22nd place, you go into Philly tied for the lead and now you're what, what is he, seven? Back? After, after, where were we? East Rutherford. So it has not gone well for Tom Vial. And it just seems like it's. Every time it looks like someone's going to stand up and take charge of this thing, they. The other shoe kind of drops or the anvil falls in the middle, the acme anvil. If you're, if you watch cartoons, if you're older than 30 years old and you've ever watched cartoons, you would know what I'm talking about there. But it's just been one error after another for these guys. And now Hamaker has the lead. He has sole possession of the red plate. He's three points ahead of R.J. hampshire, who is your west coast defending champ, and Tom Bial, who's your east coast defending champ, is seven point down. So it's, it's still anybody's championship, but it feels like it's between RJ and Seth now. And the only way that I can see Tom changing that narrative is, is if he can go out and win Pittsburgh like he, I really and truly believe he has to win Pittsburgh if he wants any chance at it because I don't think that he's going to go into Salt Lake and beat both of them badly enough to mask a bunch of points. Like, I think he's slower than both of them right now. That's, that's the first part of it. And the second part is that racetrack isn't set up perfectly for him. He's not great at blitzing loops. You're going to have to blitz the whoops at Salt Lake. And he had a horrific, horrific main event in Salt Lake last year, if you remember. So it's not a, it's not a great setup for Tom as it is. So the only way I could see it going really well for him is if he wins in Pittsburgh. So that's, that's it. If I was him, I'd be like, man, it's, it's not do or die. That's, you know, a Little bit overstated, but you, you gotta leave it all on the racetrack in Pittsburgh and try to win the damn race. The other two, I think it's, you know, you can't say it's anybody series when you have a three point lead. But it's up for grabs. There's no question about it being up for grabs at those two. And I kind of give them, you know, 60, 40, one way or the other. You know, our Seth's been a little better lately, but RJ really, really showed up last year at Salt Lake so he's going to have that in the back of his mind. He was in the same spot down to the wire with a monster Kawasaki rider. Last year was kitchen, this year it's ham maker and he's going to have to perform at the last one. So I think for rj, what you're hoping for, you're obviously hoping Seth has some sort of big problem in Pittsburgh. But if you could go win Pittsburgh and go in tied to Salt Lake, you have the same scenario as last year and you know that you're able to perform in that. You did it last year, you can do it again. So that's how I look at it for RJ and then Seth. You've never been in the spot before. You've never been in championship contention as a professional ever. So you just, I think you just look at it as an opportunity. You know, I think he had aspirations of being in the spot in 2025, but there was nothing other than just the hard work and the, you know, all the changes in the off season that would give you any reason to think that this was going to be here. So it's not like he was looking at it like, yeah, I'm for sure going to be, I'm for sure going to be at this title fight. Like I don't think you could realistically have drawn aligned to that conclusion. So I think you just look at it in that light. Like I'm, I'm happy to be here. I did. This is not what I expected to happen. I'm not going to let the pressure mount because there was no pressure going in. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to wet that cloud. How awesome of an opportunity this is. And he's making a lot of money, you know, to go out and win a 250 main event. He's probably making like 50 or 60 grand on a Saturday. Not, not bad work if you can find it. So just you know, roll with punches, like be happy about how things are going and if you can. If you can stay in that mindset and not fall into the trappings of, oh my gosh, the championship and this pressure and, you know, like, if you can stay away from that. And I'm not saying he will or can, but that's what he should be trying to do. In my opinion, that would be the goal, is to look at it as all of the upside and not any of the drawback of the pressure that can be applied in a championship scenario. So we'll see how he handles it. We don't really have anything to go on and we've never seen him in the spot. So I'm not going to pretend I know exactly how I'll handle it because I don't think he could tell you exactly how he's going to handle it. But it's been a great championship. Lots of ups and downs, a lot of unpredictability. You know, unfortunately we've had some injuries, but yeah, such as the sport, you know, we very rarely are able to avoid serious injuries. And of course that makes me think of Jerry Robin and the uphill climb he's going to have in front of him. It's just. It's a horrific thing. You know, it's everybody who's ever ridden or raced, you've certainly thought about it. You know, I think as a professional racer, you think about it more because you're simply putting yourself at risk more on a daily basis. You're taking pretty big chances and it doesn't feel like it. You know, you're within reason as a racer, you kind of know your limits and things like that. And we're in far more control than the average person is riding. We just. You're an expert at doing what you're doing, but there are always things you can't control. Your bike breaks, somebody crashes into you crash into them. There's just a lot of things that you simply don't have control over. And yeah, this is just a. It's a terrible thing to have happen to anyone. And yeah, I just wish nothing but the best for Jerry. I'm praying for him and let's hope that God can perform a miracle and yeah, I mean, I don't think think that, you know, getting back to racing professionally is even in the conversation right now, but just to be able to live a normal, healthy life somehow, that that's what I'm hoping for for him. So, yeah, it's tough, but we'll find a way to, to move on. You know, he's Got he's going to have the best, you know, medical care possible. It's, you know, the medical procedures now and you know he's living in the best era we've ever seen in the history of man to deal with something like this. So let's hope it works out. I mean there, you know, we've seen guys like Jimmy Button and people have, you know, miracles have been, have happened before. It sounds like his spinal cord is intact. So yeah, let's hope for the best. But moving on to yeah, the, the 450 class. I mean this was a, this was a big weekend. I think we talked about it going in all the different ways it could go and I think you have to paint the scenario for what can happen and what that means moving forward. If, you know, it's all these if then scenarios and I do that A lot of my personal life I try to have a plan, not so much not personal life but professional life, personal life, anything financial, anything like that. I like to have of if then scenarios planned out of my head. If this happens then this is how I will respond. If this happens. This is what my, this is how I will, you know, change my decision making or work around or whatever. Right. Like worst case scenarios, what are you going to do? Best case scenarios, what are you going to do? And I just like to be prepared for all those things and I think having that kind of laid out in an analytical way for racing, I think you can kind of be ahead of the game and, and game out how these things are going to go and we'll get, we'll get there when we talk to the top two. But top two guys, let's, let's go with the power rankings and yeah, let's start at number 10 and I have Joey Sabachi at 10 and some of these names right, this is not the prototypical top 10 because we, we have so many injuries. You know, we don't have Jet, we don't have Hunter, we don't have Eli. You know, like there are a lot of guys that are going to come back to this championship. We don't have Jason Anderson. Like you just keep going down the list of all the guys we're missing. Those guys are going to be back sooner rather than later and this top 10 is going to change a lot. But at number 10 I do have Joey Sachi and he's been getting better. Like that Philadelphia ride was absolutely incredible. Fifth place doesn't, it's not, you know, world breaking, you know like world beating, whatever, whatever. Cliche you want to throw at it. But it was, it was awesome to see him have some success. He was really good again this weekend until he crashed. Still got 11th, I think. So he's riding much better and I think he is starting to show some of the promise that I have I've seen in his riding. I just haven't seen it in the results. So, yeah, it was a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel for, for Joey, number nine. He's doing for Anderson and he's in that same boat. He rode really well this weekend. I think he got fifth. I'm not looking at the results, as you can tell, but strong rides lately and I think some of this is he's riding a little bit out of spite of not getting that Honda HRC deal. He really wanted that. But I mean, whatever, whatever you have to use as motivation, have at it. You know, it doesn't, it's not like he's going out and cursing Honda anywhere, but if you need some sort of internal fire to be lit, you know, whatever, whatever motivation you can find, I'm a fan of using it. Right. If, you know, Cooper Webb is big on this. People look for things. I look for little reasons to be angry, like the slightest insult or comment or even a look, they will take that and run with it. Hayden Deegan is famous for this. Hayden Deegan does it all the time. He will. It doesn't even have to be a real thing. And he will take that and use it as motivation and training during the week and he will come in fired up and he's probably the best example I could give you of someone doing that. But I think, I think there's a little bit of that with Dylan Ferrandis right now. Right. He wants to prove to Honda that they didn't choose the right guy for this. But I don't think Honda agrees. I think they're very happy with this Dean decision. It's a low pressure environment. They, you know, Dean fits the narrative of them wanting to have fun. They want to, they want to improve that Honda image where they're not the big corporate red machine. And Lars Lindstrom has done a fantastic job of changing that feel. But I think Dean, Dean really fits that narrative as well. The Grandpa Earl stuff, his personality. And Dean had it. He rode really well this weekend, too. I just haven't seen enough. He had one bad race one night this weekend. But yeah, I think for, you know, Ferrandis, there's a little bit of spite motivation in his riding right now. Shane McGrath is eight. And you know, it hasn't been like crazy good for Shane, like on a dry track, but those mud, that mud podium looms large. Winning the heat and that second place, that, that is a big deal for me. That highlight, it simply looms large because these power rankings are not about a one weekend thing. It's about a big picture overall, kind of look and feel for where riders are in the sport. And that podium is a huge deal. Like all these other guys. Ferranda, Savage, Barcia doesn't have a podium like all these other guys around them. They don't have a podium, they don't have a heat race win. So that, for me, it says a lot for McElrath right there. That's why he's, that's why he's eight. Number seven is Justin Barshin. He's getting better. You know, he's dealing with his finger thing, but, you know, last week he was winning in Philly and crashed rear break when I wasn't even his fault. This weekend he's trying to fight for that podium. You know, he's just given everything goes over the bars and the whoops. But he's, he's in podium contention and I think that's where we're going to see him over the last three, because he understands the situation. He's looking at the field. He knows that all those guys I mentioned are out and he knows that his ability, his name, where he's always kind of finished in the series, he should be in the podium fight. Like, he knows that deep down, no one would have to tell him that. He would just inherently understand that, which helps. That's going to, it's going to help your new starts, it's going to help you in your aggression level. Like this weekend he knocks McElrath out of the way. Like, those things tell me that he understands. Like, hey, the door is open. Opportunity is, is right there. And if you know anything about me and my podcasting or TV or anything, you know, I talk about this a lot where the door is not always open on an opportunity level. Sometimes the setup is not good and you just have to fight through it and make the best of it. Other times, like right now, the door is open. We have injuries, we have the. Some of the best and brightest stars in the sport are out. You have to make the most of it. And I think Barca gets it. I know AP does. I think Justin Cooper sees it as well. They're all fighting for that last spot. And it was, I think Jason Anderson was was a guy that I was like, man, this is your time. And then he is going through. Whatever he's going through, we don't really know, but he's out. So it's just another. Another obstacle that's out of the way for these guys to get on that podium. And for teams, for riders getting on the podium on the weekend, it cannot be overstated how important that is. There is no way to say it too much or too strongly how much that means to the team, to the sponsors, to the riders, to every aspect of racing. It is the end all, be all thing. And. And okay, if you're Sexton, if you're Webb, if you're Jet, if you're. I understand. They're. They're Toma. Or excuse me, they're podium mainstays. It's. It's different. But for the guys, that. It's not just a given. It is a huge, huge thing. And that's why they're trying so hard. That's why you see guys risking everything to go for these podiums, because it truly does matter that much. Number six is Justin Cooper. And I thought about moving him forward, but, you know, and he has rides like Seattle. Like, he's had some fantastic rides, which make me want to move him up. But then I think about the big picture of the season. He hasn't gotten a win. He has got a couple podiums. But should he be ahead of a guy like Malcolm? Should he be ahead of a guy like ap? And my answer is no. The Malcolm thing, I think, has merit, but Malcolm's win is a huge deal. Like that is. Winning a race is such a gigantic asterisk on the season that it, you know, again, it's going to get you a lot of goodwill in this power rank is gonna. It's going. When teams talk about you winning a race is a gigantic, gigantic highlight for anybody. And you're going to be in every highlight reel. You're going to be in every. You know, like, when they put these video packages together, winning a race looms so incredibly large that it can't be overlooked. And that's why I have Malcolm head of Justin Cooper. No other reason other than that Tampa win. So that is Malcolm at number five. He's riding pretty good. Like, he got six this weekend. He's been fine. You know, the only thing I think if you were gonna try to say the pros and cons, the con would be that when he got that win at Tampa, it didn't spark this huge confidence gain. And. And like, this Breakthrough moment. It wasn't a breakthrough moment that some were asking and I, I got asked that many times on shows. It was topics on like smx, Exciter. And I wasn't sure. I, I don't know. I, I kind of said I didn't think so because I thought it was so situational with those whoops. But you never know. Like, you can't count it out because it could be a switch that mentally gets flipped and he's like in the fight all the time. It didn't go that way. And I still think he's capable if the setup is perfect for him. Like if you give a really big set of hard, really tall, really hard cupped out loops, not the soft ruddy ones like we saw this weekend, they need to be like Salt Lake City. If they built really big loops there or something like that. It needs to be that type of setup. Anaheim type, San Diego type. That's the setup where I think Malcolm could get it done again. But I didn't see enough everywhere else, like the corner speed, starts, all those things weren't leading me to believe that, like, hey, he's about to break out here. On a week in, week out basis. I didn't necessarily see that. And, and I was, I would have been halfway wrong. I don't really care. Right. I'm just trying to give the best analysis I could possibly give. I just kind of felt it was going to be the track needed to really be right for him to do it. And I think the same thing is true for Justin Cooper. It's a, it's completely the opposite. The conditions need to be completely the opposite for Justin Cooper to do it. But I think that is the same setup. The track needs to be soft, ruddy slow. The whoops need to be jumpers. You know, there needs to be one set of nine whoops for Justin Cooper to be able to do it. But he's in that same thing where he can. It just. He needs everything to be set up perfectly to be able to execute, to beat Sex in a web right now, you got to have everything go your way on a track that really suits your skill set. And I think the same exact thing is true for Malcolm Stewart. Now the guy I would say that is not necessarily bound by those conditions is the guy in number four, Aaron Plessinger. I think that AP could win on a normal track right now. You know, he needs to get the start, he needs to stay out of trouble. But I've seen him ride in a way that's like, man, he he is on the pace. No, I'm not, I'm not saying he's as good as, as Weber Sexton. I'm not, I don't think he is. But I think if he's feeling it on a particular day, he doesn't have to have the perfect conditions to be able to get a win. Somehow. I just think he's a, he's like a couple percent above Cooper and Malcolm and it's, it's more, it's not like a top speed thing, it's more on a versatility thing where he's showing me a little bit on every condition. Yes. In the mud he's fantastic. Yes. Like if it's ruddy, he's really good, but he's also pretty good. And like if it's hard and slippery too, like it's not a, it's not a big detraction from him too. So I, I kind of like where AP's at as far as being super well rounded. That bodes really well for him kind of moving forward. Thank you again to our sponsors, Guts racing. Go to gutsracing.com guts racing on Instagram. They make custom seats, seat covers, custom graphics. They're the go to source for anything seats, period. And just a great group of people over there as well. They've been on board since the very beginning and I really like working with Andy, Greg and the team. They are core Moto as much as possible, humanly possible. And I guess, yeah, Works Connection in that same, you know, they've been around. My first thought of Works Connection was like in the early 90s working with Steve Lampson and in Northern California. Then they carried that into Factory Honda. They've been with Factory Honda ever since. They make the Pro on Start device, which is probably their, I would say calling card product at the moment for most people. Monster Star Yamaha uses them, Factory Honda uses them. I think it's the number one name in starting devices. It's really easy to install and their performance, I mean, do I have to say more than Factory Honda and Factory Yamaha? Probably not. But yeah, again, core company. I think the frame guards were really their claim to fame in the early days, but now they have this incredibly wide range of products. They can do things for your ergonomics, like your rider triangle, they can relocate your foot pegs, there's tons of things, radiator guards. So go to work connection.com@works connection on Instagram and see what they can offer because I promise you they have something break reservoir caps like they have all sorts of cool stuff over there to. To check out TL Speed Shop. They have this brand new website. It's race-rentals.com and you can literally sign up to go rent a trophy truck. Like a half a million dollar trophy truck. You can hop in it and rip around the desert. Like that really doesn't exist anywhere else. I've never seen it anyway. And they have it at their disposal. So they do a lot of this with custom. They. They go racing. They go racing to Baja with side by sides trophy trucks. They have like teams they put together for corporations. But they've really wanted to more open this up to the consumer. And if you're just like, hey, me and my buddies want to fly to Arizona and go rip around on trophy trucks. It's pretty kind of turnkey. That really hasn't existed in the past. So check that out. Race- rentals.com ask for Jason Cobb, the team over there. And TL Speed Shop is the kind of parent company of all that as well. Now, I mentioned I wanted to talk to you about unmatched Supplements. Now my friend Chris started this company. He was a part. He was a part of another supplement company. They disagreed on some ingredient stuff. I don't know how much I'm allowed to say over there, but they had a falling out. Chris left and he has now started unmatched Supplements. And if you know anything about Chris Geffen, you know that he is a no bs, no compromise type person. And if you know anything about me and you know Steve's always saying like monk life and all these things, because I don't really mess around with like diet, like I do. I do like to have a drink. I do like to have like a vodka water. Not gonna lie. But it's like my one vice that I allow myself because it's takes the stress away and I'm able to relax and not be worried about work and not be worried about travel and all these other things are going on in my life. But outside of that, like my diet, my exercise routine, my discipline and those things, like my personal life is, is I think pretty high compared to the average person. I think it's pretty high. And Chris has done a great job of instilling a lot of that in me. But that is a perfect, I think, rep representation of what this supplement company is. He does not cut corners on ingredients. He. He really couldn't find anything out there that was doing it to the level that he wanted. Like, they, they don't put fillers in, they don't add sugar. To things to make it taste better. Like, my favorite product they make is called Electra Shred. It's a hydration product. I drink it all the time. I'm flying in airplanes all the time, and airplanes dehydrate you. So I drink Electra Shred to replace a lot of that. And plus, it tastes amazing. I drink the orange mango one all the time. But yes, I use their protein supplements. I use their BCAAs for their amino acids to help, you know, build muscle. I use their. The hell is it called? Why is it creatine? Sorry? They have creatine. I use. So I use. I use all their stuff, basically. But I think if you buy supplements, even if it's for hydration and you're just looking for something, I'll give you a perfect example. Everybody's trying to drink more water. You hear that from everybody. You don't have to be a fitness person to know that you should be drinking more water. If you drink Electra Shred, it actually tastes awesome. That's what I love about it so much. It. I go from, like, forcing water into myself to, like, this is easy because I want to drink this. So I'm getting all the benefits of the water, plus all these electrolytes and there's vitamins in Electroshred as well. And I'm drinking a ton of it because I like it. So it's like this really easy thing to do. I'm not having to force it. And I'm getting all the added benefits of electrolytes and all these things as well. So that's a really cool thing. So I'll talk about one of these individual products each week. But unmatched supplements. I'm just telling you, I don't get paid anything to promote this. I'll be as transparent as possible. I do it because Chris has done a lot for me and the product is awesome, period. End of story. That's why I am. I really wanted to have unmatched supplements on is because I truly believe in it. I think it can help a lot of people. And if you're out buying supplements at, like, grocery stores, don't do that. Like, the quality is just awful in that stuff. The reason they're selling in grocery stores is because it's super cheap. And the only way they can make it super cheap is to build it with crap ingredients. Like, all those things work in tandem. Go to unmatched supplements. You won't regret it. Start with Electra Shred. Even if you just want to try something, start there. I I really think you'll be, you'll be happy with what it is. So thank you to Chris for trusting me to be a part of the unmatched supplements team. Grandstone boots. Thank you. You always have me looking stylish. I have so many pairs of Grandstone boots in my closet. Honestly, the biggest problem for me is when I go out to dinner is choosing which ones. I probably need a stylist because I, yeah, I look at them all, I'm like, I think that'll look okay. But yeah, it's, it's. Too many options can be a problem. Ask any factory Honda rider ever. And too many options can be a problem. And last but not least, Fly racing. Go to flyracing.com and check out the stuff that Cooper Webb has been making the brand look so good in all year long. Formula S helmet. We have a lot happening over there, a lot of new products in the hopper right now. So exciting, exciting times for Fly Racing right now. So let's jump back into it. Sorry to ambush you with the sponsor reads there, but I did want to. Yeah, I want you to listen to them. Number three is Ken Rockson and Kenny's beat up. We know he's dealing with injuries, so this is a tough slog for him right now, but he's doing pretty well. You know, this weekend wasn't a banner weekend. We know that. But he gets a third in Philly. He's trying to fight through here. I think he's probably going to get some stuff worked on. Would be my guess. After Salt Lake City you won't see him for a while, but I would guess he'll try to get healthy, maybe make an outdoor or two and then be ready for SMX playoffs. That, that's my guess. I don't, I haven't asked him, I don't know, but that's my guess. Using logic and the schedule as my guide. I think that's probably what we see from Ken Rockson, but I think overall it's been a good year. They won races, they had the bread plate. Like outside of winning a championship, you know, I, I think it's been a really solid 2025 for Ken Rockson and yeah, we'll see, we'll see what the future brings for him. I, I don't know if he's staying there or going or what the, what the move is for for Ken Rockson from here. Number two is Chase Sexton and what a damn race for Sexton. I mean that was, that was a good old fashioned ass whooping. For lack of a better term, you know, I don't think anybody could argue that Chase Sexton just uncorked one on everybody in East Rutherford. And you know, the whoops were the biggest, the biggest reason why he was, I think he was a little better in a few sections, but he was killing everybody in those whoops. And I mean Webb had every opportunity. Webb was second. Like, if Webb was going to do something, he was going to do it and he couldn't. He did not have the pace to do anything about Chase Sexton. He knows it, Chase knows it, everybody knows it. And there's, you know, there's not going to be a lot of like excuse making after that one. You know, like, typically, like I didn't get to start. Oh, he made a mistake. This was not that. This was just Sexton was simply better than, than everybody, including Cooper Webb on Saturday. Now that doesn't mean it's going to be the same dynamic next weekend. It doesn't. It can, but it's not like a guarantee. Like this wasn't to me, I don't look at one race and be like, well, it's over now. Section is going to win out. Like, that is not how I view these things. The tracks are different, the dirt's different, the weather's different, we're in different time zones. Like, soil composition is different. Like there's all those things are a week to week thing. So, you know, like nothing really changed. Sexton just put in a fantastic race. He's going to be feeling awesome this week. Coop's going to be super pissed and probably like lock down. Like he's going to be laser focused this week. And really I don't think those things even matter in my opinion. It's just the, where your head is. Like, Webb's going to be so motivated that he's gonna just be. Every thought is gonna be about getting that bad taste out of his mouth. But it's not like being more locked in or less this week is going to have this huge effect on the weekend. I don't really think that's the case. There's too many external variables. There's all this work that's put in, been put in for months and months and months that play a role, tracks the start. Like there's just all these other things that go on. But yeah, I mean if you're, if you're web and you're thinking like, I have to beat this dude, I cannot let this unravel, then yeah, you do everything humanly possible that you can on a preparation side to do exactly that. So I get it. I understand why you're just gonna be locked into every detail to a fanatical level. That totally makes sense. I just don't know that it actually changes a whole lot. And the end result is it 0.1% that he's better or something? Maybe, you know, whatever. Maybe they find something because they're. They're just un. You know, uncovering every stone, right? Like, maybe they find a little something on the start or something that's okay. Like, I could. I could buy that. I just don't think it's a changing the game scenario because he's, you know, one guy is going to be really happy, and one guy's going to be just trying to figure out what went wrong. Like, it's not really how it goes. But I just. I would say don't be victim of the moment with this weekend. And. And I think for both of them, they, you know, Sexton can't take it for granted moving forward from here. Right. Like, just because it was so easy to run away with that win, he can't let his guard down and assume that it's going to be the same way moving forward. That. That's not how this works. Each weekend is its own dynamic. Each main event is its own animal. And if Webb gets a start in Pittsburgh and has a track dialed, East Rutherford won't matter. Like, it's. It's completely irrelevant. Just like, you know, Indy didn't matter for East Rutherford. Like, Chase Sexton wasn't thinking about Indianapolis when Webb dominated everybody. If Webb gets a start and starts pulling away and Sexton gets a bad start, mired in traffic, Webb won't be thinking about East Rutherford or. And that he was too slow. Like, it's just not how it works. Like, each race is its own thing, and these guys are seasoned professionals. They know what to do. They're, like, robotic when they get into that mode. Especially a guy that's as mentally tough as. As Webb, he. He's able to kind of compartmentalize these things. So it's fantastic for us as fans to have a tight championship. It's exactly what you'd want to see is Sexton bring it back with a dominating ride. It creates so many storylines and narratives. It's. That is awesome. I just wouldn't read too much into it. I. I think some will look at and say, oh, my God, Sexton is going to. He's gonna run away. Like, he's gonna win every race by 20 seconds and. And Win the championship with a tie at Salt Lake City. Like, I don't think that's how this goes. There's just too much that can happen. It's just not typically how racing works. It's just not. So I'm. I'm going to assume we're going to see some ups and downs, some good starts, bad starts, and people tip over. That doesn't mean Sexton can't win the championship. I'm just saying I don't think it's a. What we saw at East Rutherford is what we're going to see three more times to wrap this thing. I don't believe that, because we haven't seen that at all. I guess that's like the first time we've seen it like a win like that. So I don't think we're going to see it three more times in succession after we saw it one time. But. But honestly, kudos to Sexton. Man. That was. That was an incredible race. He was. He was the man. Like, if you were ever wondering, could Sexton just step up and be the guy that we saw in 2023 at times, you weren't wondering that 15 minutes into the main because you. It was right in front of your face. So great job. I'm sure it was. There just was so much redemption in that main event for Sexton. I'm sure just when he went to bed Saturday night, I'm sure he felt really good about himself and he should. He should. That was a dominant, wildly impressive performance, period. Full stop. Great job. Chase Sexton, now number one, because he is the points leader, is Cooper Webb. And, you know, it would be interesting to be in Coop's head for this week, because I think there's two ways to look at it. One, you're just like, nah, turn the page. Like, I just wasn't as fast as him in the Whoops, and I couldn't do anything about it. I know he's better than me in the Whoops, and if the Whoops are that gnarly and he's hitting him that well, he's gonna win and we're just gonna move on. We're probably not going to face that type of setup again. And if we do, maybe it'll be one more time and I can afford to lose to him one more time like that. That's not something that will deny me a championship. There's that way. Or you are really pissed off and you're like, I'm going to. I'm going to freaking unload on everybody in Pittsburgh, I'm going to go freaking. And I don't know. I don't know. I know he was pretty angry, but it didn't seem like he was as angry as he was at Philadelphia because I think he felt like he could have won in Philly and he let it slip away. Similar to other times in this series where he could have won and he didn't make the most of it. This wasn't that. This was more like, I just wasn't good enough. Like, I was not good enough to be Chase Sexton this afternoon. So there was a little bit of, I think, just accepting what had happened. You know, he was resigned to his fate a little bit. And it's not like he wasn't disappointed or unhappy with that. It just wasn't the, the anger from that I've seen in other times where he let himself down. What was Daytona, was that for sure? There have been a couple times this year, Zoe, was that where he's just so pissed at himself because he knew he left points on the table? Tampa was that way. He was. He was really angry at the lappers, but I think he was probably mad at himself for not doing a better job with the lappers. This felt different than that because the anger he didn't have, the self anger. He just, he knew, like, man, I just. I gave it everything I had was trying. I'm just not as good in the whoops as Chase Sexton. And I don't think there was like, a big guess about that. I don't think if you asked him, oh, like Friday night at dinner, hey, do you think you're as good at the woofs as, like, big whoops as Chase? I don't think he would say yes. Like, I think if he did, I would be like, I don't think so, man. Like, he probably punched me or something. But I think everybody that's looking at it objectively would come to the same conclusion. And that's not a. That's not an insult. Like, by default, you're either going to be better or worse than someone at everything. Everything in the world. You're either going to be a little bit better or a little bit worse than them at. And I think blitzing big whoops, he's not as good as Chase Sexton. And I'm not scared to say it. I don't think that's a egregious take by any means. So when you have big whoops that Sexton is blitzing, like, the best we've seen him in a long time Yep. Guess what's going to happen. You're going to be slower. So that will be, I think, the story moving forward. Right. Without. Without the results to reflect on. You know, we're looking forward. We're gonna look at the track maps really closely and we're gonna say. And the track builds on the weekend. And are we gonna say, are these, Whoops. The setup where Chase Sexton's gonna be able to exploit Cooper Webb? Yes. No, Maybe. We don't know. We're gonna find out, though. And that's the greatest part of all this, is we don't have to hypothesize forever. We are going to get answers to what's going to happen here. They're going to have to sort it out. That's, you know, we have three weeks to go, and this championship is going to be decided, and we're going to be. I'm going to be standing in Utah, you know, God willing, and we're going to have answers. And I'm going to be interviewing people about how this all happened and what we saw and why, and trying to uncover not only what we saw, but why we saw it, like, what led to this dynamic going a particular way. And, yeah, I'm very, very fortunate to be able to do that. So thank you to everybody for listening to this podcast. I appreciate all of you for sticking around. It's been. While we're on year five of this, so it's. Yeah, I love doing it. I apologize for not getting these out soon enough or as often enough as I would like, but I have a couple things going on in my life these days, and I'm very, very thankful that they are going on. So love all of you. Thank you. I hope you have a great Easter. Spending time with your family. I'm unfortunately not able to see mine, but wishing them a happy Easter and love them back in Florida as well. So. Yeah. Talk to you soon. See ya.