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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, Bass Foundry, TL Speed Shop, Grandstone Boots and Fly Racing. Welcome to the Industry Seating podcast. My name is Jason Thomas. It is. I don't even know May 17, does that sound right? I think that's right. And craziest part about it being May 17th is this is the first Saturday that I have been home since New Year's and that maybe it's not a big deal. I don't know. Just when I reflect on my schedule and life and all these things, that's. You think about that. You tell me you imagine not being home once in any weekend since Christmas or New Year's, like that. That's. It's a lot. And what makes it worse is this is going to be the last one I get until Labor Day and then we go another month or six weeks and then I'll have another one. So don't feel sorry for me. I choose this. I also choose to go other places like MXGP rounds. I'm going to Europe for two weeks in the summer. I, I could back out of these things and have more weekends off, but I, I'm going into these with eyes wide open, so I'm not looking for, for pity or charity. It's just crazy when I think about it. Compared to, you know, the average person's wife, average American, whatever your ethnicity may be. It's a lot of, it's a lot of travel and it's a lot of missed time at home and you compromise opportunities and relationships and all sorts of things along the way. But I'm chasing what I want. I'm chasing the dreams that I have and the life that I want to live. That's, you know, that's a very unique experience for everybody. I don't expect other people to understand or would they choose the same things that I choose? Probably not. But that, yeah, that's everybody's prerogative. And there are things that people do in lives they live that I would never want to do either. Right. And that's what's great about free will and living in the country that we do, where we're afforded these opportunities and we can chase whatever your passion and your dreams and your long term goals may be. I love that. About what, what's possible here. Anyway, I'm already off on a tangent. We haven't even started yet. I want to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Guts Racing. They've been on board for a long time now. Thank you to Andy Gregg and Guts Racing. Custom seat covers and graphics works connection. So many great products over there. Made us a smorgasbord of products they have. I always tell you about the pro launch start device. Incredible piece of engineering that they made that factory. Honda Monster Star Yamaha uses unmatched supplements, is one of my newer sponsors and what a great company. I use supplements all the time, if you haven't noticed. I'm kind of. I'm into fitness. I like, you know, I've been exercising my whole life out of necessity for racing, but I enjoy it. I want to be healthy, I want to extend my life and I want to have a really high quality of life. And I really believe in what unmatched supplements is all about. It's owned by my friend Chris Gethin, who, if you've seen my kind of physical transformation over the last four or five years, a lot of it, I would say 99% of it is due to him and the wisdom and knowledge he's given me. And so it gives me a lot of pride and pleasure to represent Unmatched Grant Stone Boots TL Speed Shop. And they have their new website, race-rentals.com you can rent trophy trucks side by sides, all sorts of really great things in Arizona. Jason Cobb is the owner there and Josh and his, his son and his team, they, they have a fantastic operation there, so definitely check that out. And of course, fly racing could not do any of the things I do. If you want to talk about me going to Europe for MXGPs, so many of the opportunities I have are because of Western power sports and fly racing. We got to, we got to celebrate our first ever 450 Supercross championship. That was a huge deal. And I'm going to talk about Cooper Webb a little bit in this podcast. But such a great company and, man, we have so many great things happening right now and kind of coming. If you look at mxgp, we're winning races with Lucas Koonin. Just so many firsts and so many milestones that we're accomplishing even in a really difficult time for the industry. For instance, look at, you know, Malcolm switching from seven, which is his brother's, you know, namesake company. A namesake. But we all know where Seven originated from, right? It's James's baby. That's a sign of how difficult the market is for him to weave and go to fxr. Yes, of course, it's a, it's a great opportunity, but that was also. I'd seen it coming. I had heard that Malcolm had been looking around because it's really tough and smaller companies with one avenue of business like apparel or helmets or whatever, it's a really, really difficult time right now. So when I say that, I'm more thinking about fly racing and the things we're overcoming and adversity and finding ways to kind of persevere. And a lot of that's because of Western power sports having, having the horsepower behind us, but we're really trying to position ourselves to be the preeminent brand in the world on the other side of all this uncertainty and difficulty. So, anyway, thank you to all the sponsors and let's jump into this thing. So what I want to do, I'm not going to do the power rankings this week because it's an off weekend. But what I am going to do is talk a little bit about 250 class and 450 classes. Salt Lake, it'll be fairly brief. And then I want to talk about 250 and 450 class for pro motocross and specifically Paula, but it'll be a little bit broader than that, too. So that's kind of the format for today. And again, if you've been listening to this podcast for a long time, you know that I started this because I wanted to be able to do whatever I wanted. You know, like, I'm on all these shows. I'm on a show Sunday, Monday, two shows Wednesday, one show Thursday, and then my own Patreon on Saturday mornings. That's a lot, right? So in those shows, I am dictated to where the narrative is going, not necessarily what I need to say, but what we're going to talk about. I wanted a show where I could talk about whatever I wanted, whatever subjects. If I want to go off on a tangent like I did at the opening of this show, and tell you about myself, which I probably shouldn't do, nobody wants to hear about me, but I want to be able to share what's important to me. And I don't always get to do that. It's very rare that I get to do that. So that's. Honestly, the whole point of this podcast is get things off my chest, expand in points that I don't always get to. I'm time limited on most of those shows, especially on tv. I am very, very limited on how long I have to expand on any point on tv. So this is that. That opportunity. This is it. So Here we go. 250s Salt Lake. I mean, Hayden dominated, right? Like that. That's a fair, I think, fair thing to say. And if you recall, it wasn't. It wasn't me. It was everybody, for the most part, everybody really expected Hayden to go to Anaheim, won and this entire 25 campaign. And, you know, if you don't want to say dominate, okay, fine, semantics. But really be the guy. Like, be in charge of the situation. Be out in front of all of the other riders. And especially, especially when you look at the setup after Levi Kitchen departs Saturday afternoon, Anaheim one. Like, there was not a person at the races that didn't automatically go, well, it's over now. Deegan's gonna be champ without any real fight. That was what everybody was saying. I was there, I was listening to people, I was talking to people. It was the theme, the narrative. And for good reason. Honestly, I think that was a fair assumption to make, if not the logical and sensical one, because Bomer had never won a race. It just. There really was, you know, Davies. We didn't even know what Cole Davies was going to be like. That was not even in the conversation yet. So there was really nothing left to fight Deegan. Like, we didn't think Bomar was going to be as good as he was. We certainly didn't think Davies was going to be. And then the real guy, that there was all this talk and kind of banter back and forth, which the kids would say bants, right? Like, I don't. I don't use that term. But they would. Back and forth was between Kitchen and Deegan. And that was like, okay, who's going to win this thing between those two? And, well, one of those two leaves. Well, by default, you feel like you have your answer. And in the end, if the. In the end, if you closed your eyes and you said, okay, I'm going to sleep, it's Saturday afternoon, I am one. Wake me up on the off weekend. Like, that's some serious sleeping. Like, I like to sleep a lot. I go to bed, like, at 8 o' clock every night. That's some serious sleep. Five months of sleep. But. But if you did and you were shown the results and Deegan won by 32 points, and that's all you knew, you'd be like, okay, yeah, that totally makes sense. When Kitchen left, that's what I expected. Win by more than a race, wrap it up with a round to go. That all checks out. That is super, super predictable. Well, that's not at all how this went. We know that Deegan didn't have the Red plate for a long time in the championship. He didn't look like the fastest guy for many, many rounds of the championship. But in the end, all's well that ends well if you're Deegan and he went out at the showdown in Salt Lake, the last round, and you can say, well, there's so much going on, these guys are racing against each other and blah, blah, sure, fine, that's cool, no problem. But Deegan went out and smoked everybody anyway. You know, like there is that. Like you can't completely poo poo Deegan's performance simply because there was all this other stuff going on. Because, like Hammaker and RJ and Vow and Bowmer we'll get into. But like, they were all trying to go as fast as they could. It's not like they were like wanting to be in this drama. Like, if RJ could have got the whole shot and checked out, you bet your ass he would have. Like a million times out of a million, he, he tries to do what Deegan did. He just didn't get the start he didn't have. I don't know if, you know, I didn't look at lap times, but it, it felt like Deegan was the best guy in Salt Lake. And when you win by five seconds plus or whatever it, and you're the champ already, it's hard to really argue it. So good for Deegan. Like, do I agree with a lot of things Hayden says and does? No, I don't. But I'm also 25 years older than him, so that probably makes sense where I wouldn't. Our perspectives are different, our life experiences are different. My maturity level is, you know, I'm just older and I have, you know, I would like to think more wisdom than an 18 or 19 year old has. Like, I think that's a not, that's not a derogatory statement. That's just common sense, you know, like my level of understanding of the world at my age now versus when I was 19 is not really even comparable. Like, I knew I knew nothing. Like, I didn't even know what I didn't know. And that's where Hayden is. He doesn't. He'll look back on his actions now and I don't know that he'll be like totally disgusted with himself. Like, that's way overstating it. But he'll probably shake his head and laugh, you know, like most of us do things he says, things he does. It's just a kid being a kid, right? And think about how much money he's making. He's making literally millions of dollars at a really young age. And the life he's grown up in under the spotlight. He's been a YouTube star since he was a little kid. His dad is one of the most accomplished motorcycle superstars ever. And you can say however you want of that. Racing freestyle, X games, metal militia. However, it doesn't matter. It's all rolled up into one Persona. So his experience, I mean, he has a sister that was racing nascar. She races indy lights. It is a completely different life than most people can ever relate to. So how he's going to process or qualify or rationalize actions or things. He says it's totally different because I think they're always in the back of their mind thinking about how can we get the most engagement, how can we create the most buzz around me as an athlete? Like, that is like, it. Don't like it. They don't care. They're just trying to get you to talk about them. That's it. And I. I actually really like Brian. I do. I've talked to him pretty extensively, off the record. And he's a dad that cares about more than anything else about his kids, period. Now he's building brands and he's a businessman, and he wants to build better lives for all of them. All those things are also true. But above all that, he is a caring, responsible father, period. And if you don't think that or you're wondering about that, you don't have to believe me. Just go watch. Just go watch the races. The guy is. He never stops working on his kid's stuff, trying to make his kid better. He's down at the starting line videoing starts, Random lcq Starts videoing all the gates so he can go back and show Hayden at the truck. Like, hey, this is how the start went. These are how the gates look. This is where the starts are coming from. The. This is how they're prepping the starts. This is how long they've been holding the gate before it drops. Like he's doing all these things that his actions speak much louder than any other nonsense that goes on. That is simply to try to create this brand that they're always working on. So I have a lot of respect and time for Brian. It doesn't mean I don't think that they get things wrong or they're perfect. That's not it at all. I certainly think that Hayden gets things wrong sometimes. I don't think he always comes across in the way that he'll one day want his younger self to have come across. But he's learning. And I mean, if you're going to talk the talk, you better walk the walk. And so far, I mean, he's walking the walk, right? Like, it's not how I would do it. If you know me, if you've ever met me, I'm a very understated person. I don't like, like brash, look at me type stuff. It's just never been my thing. So it's hard for me to identify with Hayden in that way. I just don't like, I'm not a larger than life personality person. That's just not who I am. So that's not, that's not ever going to be how I would handle myself. But that doesn't make it wrong. It's just different and different strokes for different folks. Like, look how many people love Hayden Deegan. They are his biggest fan, right? And you have a lot of the other side. You have a lot of people that hate him for the same reasons. And that's okay. That's what, you know, if this was business, they would say that's what makes a market. Not everybody's going to agree or see things the same way, but Hayden is doing the work is the point. I'm trying to get to. And anytime you're going to do the work and back up all of your talk, eh, I'm probably just gonna shut up and nod my head and say, hey, man, you want to stop it? Do something about it. Seriously, like all you guys, all the 250 guys, all the 450 guys, if they want to do something, if they want to stop the talk, they got to be able to do something about it. And I don't mean knocking them down or I just mean beat them. Like, somebody commented, tweeted me and I just muted them. That's my favorite thing to do. Now if you insult me or say something I don't like, it's really out of line. I'll just mute you. I'm not going to block you. I'll just mute you. But there said something like all you, you keep talking about, do something about it. You're openly calling for people to take him out. And I'm like, no, I'm not. That's not it at all. Like, if you know anything about my analysis, you know, I hate contact. I hate dirty riding. It's not, it's not. It's just beat him, right? Like, put him in his place. Nothing, nothing will put him in his place more than beating him straight up. Not knocking him down, not getting aggressive. He thrives on that stuff. Beating him and doing it quietly just. You don't say. You say nothing. You say, yep, great job. I had a great race. Respect to everybody else, really happy to win. That will humble Hayden more than anything else you can do. And those are the things you learn when you get to be my age or older. And I don't. I can't even imagine how wise people are older than me. Right. Like, because I've learned a lot and I know that to be true. There is nothing that will burn him inside and, like, make him, like. Like, just drive him crazy, which these guys want to do. Right. Like, it's so competitive than just beating him in silence. Like, there's a. There's a saying that older people are going to be like, roll their eyes at. But it's. I don't use this, by the way. But it's. The saying is real. G's move in silent, move in silence. Right. And that's very apropos for this because the toughest people and the people you don't want to tangle with are the quietest. They don't brag. They don't flash their money. They don't do anything. They just keep their heads down. And those are the people that you don't want to tangle with. Those people, you don't want to get into some sort of contest with them because the louder you are, typically the more insecure you are. And that's not necessarily true for Hayden because he's doing really well for himself. But I just think if those guys really wanted to get some payback on Hayden, beating him straight up and not going about it in the same way he does, that's the ultimate. That's the ultimate payback anyway. So that's what I kind of want to watch for anyway. 250 east, that was way longer than I meant to start with Hayden, but he crushed it at Salt Lake. Anyway, 250 east, we cover this on a lot of shows, so I won't make this super long. The main point is, for one that sucked for Seth, like, if you don't know Seth Hammaker, he is truly one of the nicest guys. And the pits, he might be like, I don't have anybody to put above him. He is a great, great person. He handles things the right way. He doesn't. He doesn't antagonize people. He doesn't go at people. He doesn't ride dirty. He doesn't do anything that I can really say is a Negative. Like, I truly like the guy. Like, as a person, as a racer. His improvement this season has been notable, like, undeniable on every level. His poise, his control. I mean, outside of Detroit where he had food poisoning, he's been rock solid this entire championship. So this whole thing sucks for Seth. Like, that should be on the front end. I've gotten criticized for my explanation of RJ's thoughts, but I want to make sure that everyone knows that this sucks for Seth. And I agree wholeheartedly with how bad this sucks for Seth, period. Full stop. Past that. Let's talk about rj. And if you haven't fully understood what I mean, you have to understand the math. Okay. RJ needed two positions over Seth. He was. He was two points down, and Seth held the tiebreaker. So we needed. Simply beating him wasn't enough. He would have tied and lost the championship to race. Two race wins versus one. It wouldn't have gotten the job done. Or it was either two wins for both and not enough seconds. But whatever the tie break was, I don't remember it's been a couple weeks or whatever the difference was that tying, beating him by one position wasn't enough. No matter how you broke it down. Whatever the tiebreaker was, it wasn't enough to do it. So he needed one more spot. Well, they had already passed Bomer. There was no one left to get in between them. He wasn't going to go catch Hayden that was shot. So him moving into second. If Seth stays in third, which I think he would have. I think Seth was. Was better than Bowmer. It's over. They tie, Seth wins the championship, RJ gets nothing, you know, but a second place. And rj, right or wrong, you don't have to agree with it. I'm not saying I agree with it. I don't like the move either. I'm simply trying to talk about the logic. And RJ's thought process was I have to force something here. I have to change the math. And the only way to change the math in this particular dynamic, the way it's set up now, is I have to try to knock him down. And you can say that's poor sportsmanship. You can say that. Agreed. Fine. That's cool. I don't have any pushback at all. It's more of people understanding what he was trying to do, not he. Like, I heard crazy things. I heard he was trying to help Val, which is. No, no. I just heard all sorts of like, he was. He tried to force a pass when he didn't like no, no. He, he understood that he had Seth in a vulnerable position. Seth went to the outside. RJ saw the inside open. It's a slow corner and RJ didn't want to hurt Seth. That needs to be said also. So you're trying to find a setup where you can go in, you can get underneath his front wheel and you can knock him down. And also very, very low risk of injury. He's not going to get last. He's not going to hurt himself. Most likely he's just going to lose a few spots and it accomplishes the end all, be all goal, which was to get a spot in between and then Bowmer with would be in between RJ and VL and he wins because Bomer wasn't going to like. He wasn't. It wasn't a VL specific thing. He is employed by the Austria Group, which is ktm. Gas gas Husky. I saw something about Daniel Blair. Didn't think that was what was going on. I vehemently disagree. I didn't watch it yet, but I heard that and I vehemently disagree with that if that's what was said. His actions were pretty obvious to anybody watching that he was trying to make sure that a white or orange bike won the championship. You can hate that. Like it. I don't care. That's up for you to decide. My only goal in this entire thing is for people that didn't grow up with their this their whole life and haven't raced at a high level and haven't been around championship situations and walked through these scenarios and talked with riders who are doing it. Talking to rj. I've done all those things. So I feel very qualified to talk about this topic at a high level. And I don't want things to be misconstrued by the average viewer simply because they grab ahold of a certain idea which may be misfounded or misguided and run with it and then they cement that view based off of something that's factually inaccurate. That's my old goal. That's my whole goal. I don't care. If you hate RJ for it. That's fine. That is your prerogative. Don't care. No argument. You could hate Bowmer for it. Don't care. No argument. But understanding the why and how it played out logically is really the only thing that I care about. That's really it. And if you're there, you understand that RJ's only recourse for winning the championship in that dynamic, the only way was for Seth to fall down. That was it. Unless like the only other possible scenarios were two. One, he catches Hayden. For me, impossible. Never going to happen. No time left. Too big of a lead, probably not fast enough anyway. I immediately disqualify that one. The only other one was to hope that RJ passes him clean and then Bowmer mounts some sort of charge back to go get Hamaker again. Which even if he did, even if he was going to, I don't know that he could. You know, those are two different things. Whether he would have been able to. To me, it's probably unlikely. I think Hammaker is just faster than Bowmer on the track. Like I think Hammaker would have been able to hang on to it. Or the only other possibility. What if. If RJ passed him clean, held up Hammock, or like blocked him, did the same things that kind of Bowmer was doing. Let Bowmer get back into the fight and then it's on. But the problem with that strategy for rj, and this is all like super high level strategy, you have to work out all these scenarios mid race, which is incredibly difficult. The only problem with that strategy is if you do that, you kind of bunch them up, you know, you. You bring Bowmer back into the fight by slowing Seth down is you bring Val back to the fight most likely too. And then you have a points problem because you're down 3 to VL and you can't let the math change on you again somehow in there and vow get right behind you. You know, what if they bunched him up and VL was able to get around both Haker and Bomer in some sort of contact scenario and VL finishes right behind rj and VL wins a championship by default over RJ because of one position difference and he wins by one point. Like that could have happened. Right. So there was a lot to work through. The main point is that RJ had to force the issue if he wanted to win the championship. Right? Wrong. Sportsmanship be damned. That's the long and the short of it. And that's why he did it. It didn't work. You could say it was a bad plan. Sure, that's okay. Cool. No problem. I just want you know what the plan was. That's it. If you understand what the plan was, we're good. So I'm going to move on now. 450 class. You know, we all know what happened. Webb did the thing. He had to get fifth or better. That was. That was kind of a done deal. You know, once honestly Once Pittsburgh happened, I was, it's racing. So you don't want to assume anything, but I was kind of like, this is this, this is done. Like, this is, this is over now. Because for one, there are not enough healthy people to change them to get in the way here. All the real players are hurt. You know, the Jets, Tomax, Hunter, Anderson, Rockson, like they're just go down the list, man, there are so many guys hurt. So Webb doesn't have to take much risk here to stay in the top five, especially at the finale. And I just didn't see a way for Sexton to do it. And you can go back, like, you can listen to shows I was on. I got this one right where I said, if Webb doesn't do something to stop Sexton at Pittsburgh, I don't think he can stop him at the last two. Sexton is too good at those two rounds. He's too good in those conditions. Butts and loops, low traction environment. You can't use the inside because there's really no ruts. And on the inside because the dirt's too hard. It's at elevation, you can't get back up to speed quickly enough because of the lack of power. Like, there's all, there's all those dynamics which play into Sexton's favor. And that really showed up. Like Sexton just dominated the final two rounds and he, and he kind of wasn't even trying, really. He wasn't trying. He was so much better than everybody. He won by 10 seconds or whatever. He could have won by 20 if he really needed to. No problem in my opinion. Maybe like if you really needed to. 25, like, I'm being serious with that. Like, that's how much better he was than everybody. He was just taking no risk at all, just cruising. And that's the tough part, you know, and that's really what I. The only thing I want to touch on here is that Sexton was the best rider. Once Jet and Tomac went out, Sexton was the best rider in the series. The best, the most talented, the best skill set, the highest ceiling. But Cooper Webb was the best racer in the series. His mental game, his ability to think quickly, figure out situations, understand racing dynamics, assess situations and respond accordingly. Know the math, know when it's time to really take chances and when it's okay to lay up and get second. Like, knowing all those things is where, you know, it's mid race stuff. It's knowing where riders want to be before they do. Where are they, what lines are they? Going to take. How can I negate some of their. Some of their best or their strongest areas? He's. He's the master. He's the best I've ever seen at that stuff. And in the end, it was simply too much for everyone else to overcome, namely Chase Sexton. Like, he just was able to figure out how to do it and he got the job done. Like, he. He got the job done in the end. And that's about as equivocal as I can put it. Chase is the best rider. Webb was the best racer, and we saw who won the championship in the end. Now let's turn the page. I didn't mean to spend so much time on Supercross. Let's turn the page to pro motocross in the 250 class. I kind of see it as kind of tears. And I have pretty much two tiers that I want to call out, and tier one is Deegan. Maybe that's not fair, but that's how I see it. I have Deegan at the top tier and he's kind of standing alone. Think about it like a whiteboard where, like if. Like a mob boss thing where it's like the. What's the word they use? Capo. Okay. I don't know. I've been watching a lot of mob stuff lately. But, like, Deegan would be at the top and then the next tier below that, all branching out would be we Buy Kitchen, Tom Vial, Chance, Jaime, Joe Shimoda, and maybe Ty Master Pool. Now, could you have more guys in there? That's okay. If you do, no problem. That's who I have. And I have maybe for Master Pool. I don't know about that. But the other guys, I feel confident those are the next tier. And the interesting thing about the second tier is that's where the breakouts come from. And I would have had Davies in the second tier also, but those are where the breakouts come from. Put Hammaker in that tier 2. I can't believe I forgot Hammaker. Those guys can take a step. We saw Jaime do it last summer and he wasn't able to sustain it, but we saw it. We've seen Kitchen make the jump from there. I think he will be ready to roll. Like he's going to be all systems go come Fox Raceway. We've seen Joe Shimoda at times make the jump from there. The difference is is Hayden's there every weekend. Good start, bad start, crash issues, mud, dry, doesn't matter. He finds a way to get it done and that is that's the real difference. That's why I have him in his own tier, is because his ability to overcome adversity is. It stands alone. He deserves to be in his own tier. He was a champion last year. He broke out in 2023. We all know that. Think about, like, washougal race, Red Bud, he broke out and made good on it in 2024 and now he goes into 2025 in the standalone position for good reason. He deserves that. He has earned that right. I feel very, very good about that. Very confident in that position. The question is, who of these guys can. Can break out? Jaime has been practicing motocross for two months now. Like, he's just been full bore all in on motocross, trying to be the best motocross racer he can be, because that's been the goal all along. They've been saying that since before Tampa. Be ready for motocross, supercross. We simply don't care. They almost pulled him out of Tampa entirely, but this is what the goal has been, is to be the champion in motocross this summer. Now, is he going to do it? Who knows? I don't know. I would say it's unlikely because he's been too inconsistent to win a championship. But that is the goal. Make no mistake, that is. That is his goal. That is Honda HRC's goal and that is everyone around him, Michael Byrne, the Lawrences, everybody associated with this program. That is the goal for Chance Jaime this summer. We know Kitchen can do it. We saw how good he was. It's, can he do it? Can he best Hayden Deegan? Because Hayden's going to go at him. If Kitchen comes out really strong, Hayden's going to go right at him with comments and start the whole thing, the whole circus, right? He's going to be posting about him during the week and all the things that Hayden does, that's, that's what will happen if Kitchen starts really strong. And for any of these guys, if they start really strong, be prepared, be prepared for the whole mental game, right? All the gamesmanship that Hayden can conjure will be coming at him. And that's just how they roll. You have to know it's coming. So we'll see if Kitchen can mentally, can he get past that? Because he hasn't been able to yet. He has not been able to overcome Hayden's fitness, his resilience. He's just freaking relentless, man. That kid is in every way mentally, physically, he just keeps coming and that's what Kitchen has to deal with. The other guys we don't know like Hammaker needs to take the same step outdoors that he did in Supercross. But Masterpool, I don't think he can do it for a championship. I think you're going to see flashes. I just don't think it's going to be a 11 week type thing. And then Shimoda, we kind of know what the issues have been. He starts too slow, then gets better at the end. I don't know if that'll be the same this year, but that's been the M.O. especially. Well, I would say only for motocross, but every championship has been the same. This year he broke out of that at Anaheim. He did win the opener. He, he really upset that narrative, but it wasn't his fault. He got hurt the next weekend. So we really haven't seen Joe go the distance in a championship fight. So that's going to be the ask for him to break out. Let's switch to the 450s because I feel like the 250s, we within reason know what to expect. The 450s, man, this is set up. There has never been a setup this good ever, ever, ever, ever. For 450 motocross, it's never been this good. And I, I don't care. You tell me a year, you could say it was as good and I would be like, I don't know because I don't remember like 1990, 250 pro motocross. When I say 250, that was the big bike. For younger listeners, I don't know if it was this good. I know that there was a really deep field back then, really deep. But you're going to tell me that we have the defending champ and Chase Sexton, we have Jet Lawrence, who was the 2023 undefeated champion, the two time SMX champion, the 2024 Monster Energy Supercross champion, and he's coming back fully healthy to this series. We have Eli Tomac, who do I have to really walk through his accomplishments? He's won a race 11 years in a row. What three time champion of this class alone, two time monster injury supercross champion. He's won 52 or 53 supercross races. Like he's Eli freaking Tomac. He's healthy. You don't need more than that. You have Jorge Prado, the defending back to back MXGP champ. And if you don't think that carries weight or if you kind of roll your eyes at that series, you, you're doing yourself a disservice. Those guys haul ass, period. End of story. If you don't believe me, go watch any motocross nations in Europe for the past 10 years. I don't need to say more than that. That's plenty. Those guys are really, really fast. And that doesn't mean Prado is going to come in and win. I'm not saying that. I don't know. I don't know what Jorge Prado is going to do. He's going to be really good, though. If you think he's going to be slow and going to get seventh, man, I really don't think that's going to happen. Could he get seventh in a moto here and there? Have a bad weekend? The track doesn't work for him. He struggles to adapt to the Kawasaki at a certain track. Oh, sure, okay, cool. But do I think he's going to be battling with AP every weekend? No, I do not. I think he is a much better motocross rider than most of our 450 class. He deserves to be in the Jet Sexton Tomac conversation. He does. Whether he lives up to it, we're going to find out. But going in. I've watched him race all over the world for multiple years. I've watched him race against our guys, against their guys. He deserves that level of respect. He truly does. I do not and will not back, back away from that stance. We're just going to see where he stacks up against them in a week's time and it's going to be, it's going to be amazing to watch. And yeah, I didn't really talk enough about Sexton, but Sexton's firing on all cylinders and that's a, that's a big thing. He has the most momentum of anybody here. He's healthy, he's got his bike sorted out. He dominated the last two rounds of the series. He really, really wants some retribution against like Jet and Tomac and these guys because he just lost his championship where he probably felt like he gave it away. Sexton's going to come in hot and he's really good at Fox Raceway, so I just don't know. You could throw in Hunter, you could throw in Anderson. You know, Hunter probably deserves a little bit more credit because he did lead the points last year and he really had a breakout season. But I don't know if, I don't know if he deserves the same level of, of accolade as Sexton, Prado, Tomac, Jet. I just don't think he does. I mean, if you look at. And Hunter's gotten a lot better, but if you look at where Prado was and Hunter were when they were racing each other in MX2, Prado was way better. Like way better. That doesn't mean it's going to be the same thing now. Those two things are not equal. I just don't feel comfortable putting Hunter into the very, very top tier of four that I have the other end. And then maybe that's wrong. Maybe that's not fair to Hunter. Maybe you don't like that, maybe you disagree, that's okay, cool, no problem. It's not like I'm going to ride that take to the end of the earth. I just think it's fair for those four to have their say by themselves going in and, and that's going to be fluid, right? If things change and Hunter breaks out or who knows, who knows what's going to happen in this damn championship. But that's how I feel going in. It's those four above everyone else. The next tier and I have Hunter at the top of this tier. The next tier are Hunter, Justin Cooper and Justin Cooper is one we have to watch for. He could break into that top tier. You know when I talked about 250 class where those, that second tier can jump up. Justin Cooper and Hunter are both riders that could make that move. So I have Hunter and Jacob at the top of tier 2. Like they're like 2a and then 2b. I have guys like AP Anderson, Malcolm. I don't know what Bart's deal is but that's where I have those guys. When Kenny comes back he'll be like 2A. He could jump to one also. That's where I have Kenny. But he's, he's going to be out for an extended period. I think, I only think he's going to race like two or three races. So those part time guys in the series I'm not going to really worry about too much. We'll just see how they stack up. But we know enough from Kenny that when he comes he's going to be great. He's going to be in the fight for the podium. That's just who he is. So he'll be in that, you know, maybe 1B to 2A like betweener type area and honestly it's kind of where he deserves to be. His, his record speaks for itself and he deserves that level of credit. So what do I expect from Paula? Those are my tears. What do I expect from Paula? You know, Paula is going to be this time where everybody's figuring each other out. All those four guys that I mentioned are looking at each other going, okay, who's the best of us? And they're all thinking they are. Prado's not scared. You know, he's probably the most uncertain because he's never raced any of these tracks. He's never raced the Kawasaki in motocross. He's never raced these guys in their own series on American soil for a championship. He's never done any of those things. So he's got to be the one with the most questions to answer. I think the other guys, I think, are, for Tomac and Jet, it's a health thing. Are we back to where we need to be? Are we 100% healthy? And is our form where we hope it is? They don't know that that's going to be their question. They're trying to answer quickly, is, am I as good? Am I in the position that I think I am? Because a lot of times when you come back from injury, you think you're ready, you think, I'm right back to where I was before I got hurt. And most times you're not. Most of the time you're not, because it's so difficult to get all of that momentum back that you had before you hurt yourself. It just takes time. It's really hard to come back from an injury right back to where you were at the first race. So that's what they're going to be trying to. Trying to answer for themselves. And they're not going to know until sometime on Saturday afternoon. It may be halfway through the first moto. It may be with five minutes to go in the second moto where they're tired. They're more tired than they should be. We're going to find out, though. And then for Sexton, fitness isn't going to be a question. Speed isn't going to be a question. His bike isn't going to be none of those things. He knows all those things. The question for Sexton is a unique one, and it is, can I beat Jet in pro motocross when all things are equal? And Tomac, too. You can put Tomac in that, in that argument as well, because he hasn't really faced him since 2022 and he lost to him in the championship. It's a. It's a mental question for Sexton very much more than the other three. In my mind, it is so much more a mental battle. And a mental Q and A that Sexton is having with himself versus everyone else is a physical and situational. For Prado with Track Bike, all those things. So that's kind of how I see it. Different. Different dynamics, different questions, different challenges they're facing. But that's what makes this all this so fascinating. And, and man, I. So, you know, sometimes we have to play things up. We have to get excited when sometimes maybe it's not all there. This is not that. This setup for 450 Pro Motocross as it might be as good as we're ever going to get. Seriously, it might be the best we're ever going to get, ever. And that's so hyperbolic. I understand, but I don't. I mean it. I truly mean it. I don't know, like, I guess you could say with Barcia was there and Kenny was there, you know, and these guys. Okay, sure. But I don't think Barca would have anything for the top couple anyway. Kenny, maybe if he's 100% healthy, that's probably a fair thing to throw in there. So we're not really missing much. You know, we have the four guys that I think the championship is going to come from and then you throw in the. The surprise guys like Justin, Cooper and Hunter and we don't know, like, AP was really good at the opener last year as well, you know, so throw those guys in there. But if you're not excited for next Saturday, I don't know what, I don't know what you could possibly be looking for if you're not excited. So I'm excited. We're a week away and I am amped for next weekend. I'm happy I'm not there right now I'm enjoying a weekend off. But I am going to be thrilled when we get to. We get to watch all this unfold next weekend. Thank you to everybody for listening. Thank you to all my sponsors. Guts Racing Works Connection Unmatched supplements. Seriously, try those. The promo code, I think it's JT10. I don't know. There is a promo code for unmatched supplements. You can reach out to me, I'll get it to you, but I'm Pretty sure it's jt10race-rentals.com which is owned by TL Speed Shop, Grant Stone Boots. Get yourself some. I promise you, you won't regret it. And Fly Racing, thank you to everybody for everything you do for me. Thank you for listening. If you have feedback, you can DM me. You can comment something on my Instagram. Yeah, please reach out. I love feedback and also I have a Patreon podcast every Saturday morning. I'm going to start trying to promote that a little bit more. But I talk about the race on race day, the vibes, what I expect to happen, fantasy advice, things that happened on Friday, press, all those things. It's pretty cool. It's the last, I think it's the most up to date podcast of something like that. It's every race day morning, so check that out. It's patreon.com industryseeding you can join for as little as a dollar, but it helps me buy new equipment. I got a new microphone this week, so hopefully the sound quality is better. But anyway, thanks everybody and we'll talk to you soon. See you.