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A pulp mx network production.

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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 Works Connection TL Speed Shop, Unmatched supplements, Firepower parts, Grandstone boots and fly racing.

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Welcome to the Industry Seating podcast. I am Jason Thomas and this is Tuesday, February 10th. And I am getting this one out. I'm laughing because I'm getting it out earlier in the week but I missed last week so both things can be true. I am getting it done earlier in the week than I promised, but I also missed one. So here we are, we're going to talk about Glendale. We're not going to cover Houston because that's long gone. Nobody cares anymore about what went on in Houston, but we're going to talk about last weekend in Glendale and we're going to talk about what's coming in Seattle. It's going to be weather, it's going to be cold. What do we expect to happen? Touch on that a little bit. Also, reminder that I do a Saturday morning edition of this podcast. It's just on Patreon. I think you can sign up for like a dollar, as little as a dollar. But you go to patreon.com industryseeding if you want a little Saturday morning preview of from, from the race. I'm either at the hotel or at the track when I do it. So yeah, check that out. Before we jump into this thing. Thank the sponsors of this and just a preface. This is going to be a quick one. It's going to be down and dirty. I'm going to get to the point, not going to wax poetic on all sorts of other things, but we are going to cover what's important. Sponsors of this podcast, Guts Racing, go to gutsracing.com check out all the great products they have. They just signed on to the Title 24 podcast as well. Congratulations to Andy Greg. That's a big deal. Works connection, go to worksconnection.com go to worksconnection on Instagram pro Launch Start device Just absolutely dominating Hayden Deegan getting hole shots left and right. And yeah, if factory Honda uses it and Monster Star Yamaha uses it. Why aren't you raced-rentals.com if you ever wanted to drive a trophy truck or maybe you just are like, that sounds fun, but I have no idea what I'm doing. They have trophy truck schools, they have side by side schools. You can race things like the Mint 400, the Baja 1000, Baja 500, Baja 400. You can do all those things. With race-rentals.com I got to see them because they're based right outside of Phoenix and just a really great program they have. Jason Cobb and his team are. It's a first class operation. Unmatched supplements. It's my buddy's company, Chris Gethin. He's a world renowned fitness trainer and trans. I don't know what the word is, transformationist. But basically where his claim to fame was is he takes people that are not happy with where they are in their life. Overweight, unhealthy, and he completely turns their life upside down on a fitness level. And that's what he does. Like if you ask around the fitness world, like, what does he do best? That is it. He takes people that literally, they're on their way to an early grave because they're so unhealthy and, and he makes them look like they're like the guy that everybody, the people that everybody's staring at in the gym like he, he is. So he's been doing this for decades now and he has so much knowledge. And I wasn't in that realm of like super unhealthy, but I was not happy with where I was either. I wasn't super fit. I kind of let myself go a little bit from my racing days and he has completely transformed me into, you know, I'm not, I'm not a finished product, but I am working to be better every day. The products that I use are unmatched supplements. He and his partner own the company and you can go to unmatchedsupps.com and see everything they have. And they have so many new things coming. You don't have to want to go, you know, be the strongest guy in the gym or be super ripped or do any of those things. You could just want to be healthier. They have peptides for helping you sleep better. They have things for hydration. If you just maybe you live in a really hot and humid climate, you just don't want to be dehydrated all the time. It can be as simple as those things. Multivitamins, they have everything there. So go check those guys out. I believe the promo code is JT10. If that doesn't work, just DM me on social somewhere. Mention me on social and I will get that corrected. But I'm pretty sure that it's JT10. Grandstone boots. Best boots in the game. Go to GrantstoneShoes.com check out all the things they have. Sneakers, women's boots, men's boots. Incredible product they have. And that's, that's one of the, they're one of the sponsors that have been with me from the very, very get go and they reached out to me, they said hey, we are starting off and so are you. Let's, let's do this thing together. And we have never looked back. So thank you to Wyatt and his team for all the help over the years. Firepowerparts.com, it's a Western Powersports owned company but they have the best motorcycle batteries, period. Club MX uses them. Most of the teams have used them over the years. They have, we have all kinds of other products there as well. Handlebars, drive systems, all kinds of things coming wheels. But I think the battery is probably the best known product and of course Fly racing. If you don't know what fly racing is or that I work there then I say you're probably lost. I don't know how you arrived here. I'm happy to have you but that would be a strange encounter for you to be here and not know that I work for Fly racing. So anyway, let's do this thing. 250 class. That's four in a row for Deegan. And I've tried to be complimentary on the broadcast. I don't know if you've noticed but I have been making a concerted effort. I very much believe in when you are doing the right things, you should be rewarded for it, both verbally, I think people should recognize it. And when I go into a season and I say hey, I want to see certain things, I want to see improvements, I want to see him take steps in certain areas, I'm just being honest, I'm being analytical with this, with his racecraft and I know he doesn't love it. You can sense the tension in him towards me. I have zero. I'm super impressed with, with his racing talent but you can sense it. Everybody senses it when we're talking. But I've really tried to now that he has done the things that I've asked like be better in the whoops check, get consistent on the starts and that doesn't mean you have to whole shot like he's been doing. But I just want to see him around like top 2, 3, 4 every time that would show me that he has taken a step that is a repeatable process. Every single time on the start he is knocking it out of the park. That's what I want to see and he's doing those things. So I've been trying to share that in hopes that he would recognize that and maybe take the edge off of our conversations. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't happen. In the end, I don't really care. That's up for him to decide. I'm just here to do my job. And when he's doing the things he's doing, you can bet your ass that I'm going to be complimentary of that because he deserves that. Now. Do I love the other things? Do I love the, you know, shooting the bow and arrow at Kitchen? All the other things, the finger gunning, that's not my style. Doesn't mean it's wrong. Doesn't mean that it's. It's inappropriate or like, that's not for me to decide. It's just as a, like a personality thing. Anybody that knows me would know that I'm pretty subdued. I don't run my mouth a lot to people. I, A lot of people think I'm quiet. I'm not really quiet. I just, I don't run my mouth if I don't have anything to say. If I have something to say, then I'm going to say it. But I don't just talk just to talk. Right. So I'm not like a larger than life personality. Hayden is, and that's fine. It's just a difference in personality. And it shouldn't come down as I'm condemning that behavior because I'm certainly not. That is not my place to do that, nor would I ever. It's just not necessarily my style. I like, see myself more as like, Kitchen is probably more similar to me where we're just quiet, reserved. But if we have something to share, then we're going to share it. It's just not in the same type of boisterous way that Deegs does it, and that's okay. As for Kitchen, he was riding. That's the best I've seen him ride in a long time. I don't know if years, but maybe, maybe since like last year at Detroit when he won out that red flag past Anstey. That was pretty damn good. But I would, I almost want to say like back to 2024 when he was battling RJ and that Seattle race where he dominated. I don't know, like, this is. This was a turn in his riding, like performance. Doesn't mean he won. His start's still awful and Deegs was long gone. And, you know, there's been a lot of back and forth on social. If you're on social media, you might have seen it, but it's a lot of fans going Back and forth about. Had he been at the start, he would have beat him. And then all the Deegan fans are like, that's not true. Deegs was cruising. Where I come down on it is. I think that Deegan had more in the tank. I do. I think Deegan got out front and I think he was hedging his bets and not really taking any risks. And he was marking Kitchen. Now, did it make him angry that Kitchen was catching him? I would say that's an absolute. I would say that's a. That's a hard. Yes, because Deegan doesn't want to be caught, especially by Kitchen. But I also think he was managing the situation as well. He was managing his lead. He wasn't going to do anything stupid. He wasn't going to throw away the win just because he wanted to maintain the size of the lead. He's too. His racecraft is too good for that. He's. I don't want to. I'm going to get myself in trouble. I don't want to say, like, he's too smart for that. Like, I'm not. I don't think he's like a Rhodes scholar, but I think his racecraft is incredibly proficient. And I would say the same thing about Jet Lawrence. Like, I don't think Jet Lawrence is like, the smartest person alive. Like, these kids are not highly educated people, nor am I. But their racecraft, the way they can manage racing situations, is elite, it is top tier. And those two things can be true. They can be mutually exclusive, that they're not going to go ace the sats and get into Yale. But they can also be incredibly gifted at what they do and what they've dedicated their life to doing, which is exactly what you're seeing. Winning races, getting out front, understanding the situation in the middle of a race and when to push and when you can weigh up and. And kind of back off and it's okay to only win by a few seconds, still get the bonus check, still get the points, still get the record books. So, yeah, I don't know how to necessarily define that, but I do think there is a true difference there. And it goes the other way, too. Some of the smartest people alive that could write algorithms and write code for Amazon, they would have no idea how to ride a motorcycle, nor have any clue about the Racecraft involved that it would take to win a supercross race. They're completely different dynamics. So I don't know why I felt like I have to define that, because I certainly don't want it to come off that I don't think these guys are smart. It's just their wheelhouse and what they've dedicated their entire life to learning is completely different than most people. Like the, the framing could not be any different. And the average person who goes and gets their MBA and if they talk to a writer about anything, world events, finance, they would be like, that guy, he doesn't know anything. But if you talk to him about racing and the intricacies of all these things, he would be, that guy would be lost and the race should be like, yeah, you know nothing about what I'm talking about. So both of them, you know, they have their place. The, where it, where it differs is that if you don't, if you go down this racing road and you learn all these intricacies and then you can't use it to make any money, that's the problem, right? These guys are making millions. Jet and Deegan and Hunter and Tomac, these guys are making millions of dollars. They didn't have to go get multiple degrees and secondary schooling and all these things. But if you don't make it work, you better find a way to educate yourself because the world is a competitive place and it is not easy to be successful if you don't have any sort of education at all. Anyway, I am way off topic. Cameron McAdoo, I don't have a lot to say. Well, he's just kind of scrapping it out here. He's riding better, he's finding pace. We talked about that a little bit on the broadcast. He doesn't have the pace of the, of Deegan for sure. And I would, I would say Kitchen also this weekend, maybe they've been closer to other races, but this weekend for sure. But he's, he's making it happen. And if you don't have your best stuff in a season and you're still finding ways to grid out podiums, then good on you. Sometimes it just has to be that way. Sometimes you're not going to have your best stuff, you're not going to have your fastball. And if you can find a way to get the out anyway. And I'm using baseball metaphors now, if you can find a way to get the guy out anyway, that's all it takes. And that's what I feel like Cameron McAdoo is doing right now. Ryder DeFrancisco, he was hauling ass all day, but in the end, mistakes will cost you. And that's what happened to him. Just found himself on the ground, found himself in bad positions and he didn't get the result that he was capable of. Because I'm telling you, had he gotten to the front, he could have been. I truly think he could have been on the podium. He was truly riding that well all day long. Michael Mosman, I don't know. Like, he was there and he just didn't have. He hasn't had that same magic. He's been riding pretty good, but he's not had that Anaheim 2 magic where everything is working out because he had an opportunity. He was there. He had a podium in his sights this weekend and he couldn't close the deal. So I'm sure he was frustrated with that. But the key is he didn't throw it away. He didn't throw away, you know, any sort of, like, reasonable result. He didn't go cartwheeling down the racetrack out of frustration. You have to, you know, when you don't have it, you have to just take what the race is going to give you sometimes. And I know it's frustrating. I've been there. I gone through the emotional roller coaster and having to swallow really hard and knowing, like, if I push over this limit, I'm going to crash and then that gives me nothing. So you just have to take what the race is going to give you on a certain night and move on. And then Max Ansley, I don't even know what to say. Like, it's just not working. It is not working for Max Ansi right now. I thought we had kind of gotten back a little bit in Houston. Not so much this weekend. I, I will say, though, Seattle weather, Seattle, soft track. Maybe there's a chance he gets back in the fight. Maybe. I don't know, though, because it is just. It hasn't been there. It is just not been the same guy ever since. I want to even say, like, when he hit the ground in San Diego, like, I know that wasn't like any sort of pivotal thing. It has nothing to do with anything, but it was just the last time that I really saw him, like, kind of able to go at the front. It just hasn't been there since then. So Anyway, that's our 250 class. I know I'm going fast through this, but I don't want this to be a long one today. We're going to get through it and then we're going to do another one hopefully on Sunday because I get home early from Seattle. We're going to do our power rankings and the two honorable mentions this week. RJ Hampshire is on the Outside looking in, but really like, what am I supposed to do? His results haven't been good. He's been fighting outside the top 10 a lot of. And then he couldn't even race last weekend because he was sick. I have no issue putting him right back in if he does well in Seattle, but I think, I think he probably deserves to sit out a week. It just hasn't gone really well for him in 2026 yet. And he'll be fine. He's going to get better. He'll be fine. Aaron Plessinger. I almost put him in 10th. I almost did. But I think Ferrandis has been a little bit more consistent than ap. You know, AP had a rough go there for a bit. It's been a. It was a rough January all the way around for ap. This weekend was a little bit better. Maybe it's the start to something. Let's hope so for his sake. But he is on the outside looking in as an honorable mention for the February 10th podcast. Anyway, at number 10. I foreshadowed it a bit with Dylan Ferrandis. And listen, he's not setting the world on fire. This is not like a renaissance year for Ferrandis, but he's been solid. And remember, he's on a brand new bike, on a brand new team. And none of this, I'd say none of them. This bike has never raced Supercross before. That really does matter because they don't have data. They don't have. Is it data or data? I always, I don't know that there is a right or wrong, but I think I go back and forth, which is really strange. Like I'm not even consistent with it. But they don't have information to look back on and say, okay, this is the situation. This is how the tracks change. This is what we did. This is where we need to go. They don't have that. That. That takes years or at least months to build up. And they simply do not have it. Number nine is Jason Anderson. And I think. I don't know what to. I don't know what to make of Jason Anderson. You know, he certainly has the capability to run at the front. We've seen great races from him so far. But what I wonder with Anderson is, is he going to sustain this top tier level moving forward? Is he going to be the guy that can put it in the top five or on the podium in the second half of the season? I've been talking about this for months. This is not a new concept for this show or me in general. But I think all of the WSX racing and just if you just look historically 2023 and on, it has gone really poorly in the second half of championships and I don't know why, I don't know what to point to. I don't know if it's a physical thing, a mental thing, a motivation thing. I have no idea. Sentiment. I have no clue. And I'm not going to try to guess or make accusations. All I can do is go off of what the results say and the results say that he starts to deteriorate in the second half of any championship he participates in for the last several years. So that's what I'm wondering, do we get the same thing? And I'm not going into with an open mind. I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm just saying what has happened and we need to watch for it, that's all. Number eight is Joey Savage and he has been on a heater. Joey is riding incredibly well. 6, 7, 6, 7. I'm sure some little kid somewhere, if a little kid listens to this, is going 6, 7, 6, 7. But he's been right in there. And that is phenomenal for Joey Sachi. Like, those are really solid results on a privateer bike to be. He's beaten factory guys week in and week out. So kudos to Joey Savage. He's got a broken toe. Talked about that a little bit on the Racer Flight Racing Race review podcast. It's really hard to do. It's really painful. Been there, done it, got the T shirt. I wouldn't wish that on anybody. It's. It's really annoying and it's just aching pain all the time. So I'm sure he is hoping that heals much faster than is possible, but that's how injuries work. Number seven is Joe Jorge Prado. And I think Prado's been the story of 26. I do. Hunter Lawrence makes a great case for that. But Hunter's been winning for a while. He's had the red plate. He's been battling for SMX World Championships. Like, there's all that. Jorge Prado's 2025 was abysmal. It was like the plane crashing into the mountain, bad. And here he is on a new team saying, you know, he said exactly what he needed. He needed to get back on a ktm. He said he couldn't do it on the Cali. And we all laughed. I'll be the first one to say I laughed and said, come on, man, like, I don't know what to what to tell you. But here he is like he is. He is proving everybody wrong. And listen, I'm wrong a lot and I was probably wowed wrong, which is even worse. But when you're wrong, you got to admit it. And he is doing the thing. Man, he looks incredible. So good job. Jorge Prado, I salute you and I apologize for not believing you a year ago, even though I was dead certain about what I was saying. Clearly you knew more about what you needed than we did and you are rising to the occasion. So great job. You deserve a lot of credit and a lot of apologies. Honestly, I don't regret saying what I did because it's what I believed. But I could also admit that I was wrong. And you are far better this year than I think anybody imagined you would be. Number six, Justin Cooper. Finally, some life from Justin Cooper. And I. I hesitate to say that because he went 66 the first two. It wasn't awful, but like, we haven't seen him anywhere near the front. And those rides were salvage jobs from horrible starts. So he finally gets a reasonable start and he is catching. Cooper Webbweight puts in a really strong ride on a track where I wondered how it would go because he wasn't anywhere near one of the fastest guys in the whoops. But he overcame a lot of to get this done. So good job for him. They're still working on the starts. They're still trying new things. They have a completely different hydraulic clutch assembly on the motorcycle now. They're still chasing this thing, trying to get the starts figured out. But they got, you know, between Cooper Webb and Justin Cooper, they went 3, 4. Webb is on the cable clutch. So he has really no excuse. But, yeah, good job, Justin Cooper. Like, I like to see the bounce back here because I wondered when he put in the best lap of the race at Houston if that was going to kind of be a signal that, like, hey, man, I can do this. Like, I just need to snap out of this. And I'm not saying that mattered. I just wondered if you would see a sign of wife from him in Glendale. And there it was. So good job. Number five is Chase Sexton. I don't know what to say. I don't know what he's doing. He's better than this. Like, that is the problem. Like, I'm not coming down on him for getting seventh. I think he got seventh, right. I'm coming down on him because he is far too good to be back there. Nobody. No, he got fifth. I don't know what he got. Clearly, I need to do more research. Maybe he got fifth because Savage got sixth and Joey maybe got seventh. I'm gonna look right now. This is. This is embarrassing. In any case, Aaron Plessinger. I'm sorry, Chase Sexton is far better than the result he got. He got seventh. I was right initially, so I take it all back. I was right on my initial guess. That ain't going to do it. You can't get beat by Savachi. You can't get beat by Prado. You can't get beat by Justin Cooper. You can't do it. And I'm not trying to take shots at those guys. I'm really not. It has nothing to do with them. It has everything to do with Chase Sexton. This is a former champion. This was a guy that took Cooper Webb to the wire last year and won, what, four out of the five last races of the season. He is too good to be getting a reasonable start and ending up seventh. It's not it. I know he knows that's not it. I'm not telling him anything he doesn't know. But I'm. That's not going to stop me from saying it because I've watched the guy ride for too long, and I know he's too talented and too gifted, too capable to be getting seventh damn place. So he's in fifth. He's in fifth and keeps going this way. I don't know that he'll stay in fifth, to be honest with you. Number four is Ken Rockson, and he won the race. Good job, Kenny. You know, Ken Roczon is hard to dislike. If you don't like Kenny, that's fine. I mean, everybody has their favorite riders, and he's been a rival of a lot of guys. So I know there are people that don't like Ken Roczen. I get it. Where if, like, you don't like Aaron Plessinger, then honestly, kind of screw you. Like ap, Is everything great about this sport? I don't know how you could not like. You don't have to be a cowboy. You don't have to be into any of those things. But as a human being, if you don't like Aaron Plessinger, then I don't know, like, seriously, man, what would. What is your problem? I'm talking to you. Whoever is saying, yeah, I don't like that guy. What is your problem? But, like, Ken rocks, and I get it because he's been in championship fights and anytime you are one of the top tier guys, you're going to have rivalries and rivalries create dissension, and people don't like the other guy, and that's all normal. But Kenny is truly a really nice guy. He's one of the guys that's on the podium. You know, a lot of the guys, I just let them do their thing. I don't want to get in their way. I don't want to bother them. Kenny's one of those guys where we're just chatting it up. We're talking, talking about the track, and almost to the point where they're counting me down to go live, and he's still talking, and McAdoo's kind of the same way, and I'm like, dude, dude, dude, stop, stop, stop. Okay? And then I jump right into the interview. Like, that is kind of how it goes. You don't get to see any of that. But I'm panicking because he's still talking, and I'm going to have to talk over him, and I don't want to be disrespectful in the middle of his conversation. But there is. There is a lot of those moments going on when I'm interviewing McAdoo and Ken Rockson specifically. But anyway, uh, Sexton was no Roxann. What am I doing? I'm. That's how many times my. Screw a name up. Uh, Roxanne was phenomenal, and you could. Like, this win was telegraphed. If you go all the way back to A1, you could see how close he was. Go to the second round. He was in the fight, and I know Tomak won, and Hunter ended up passing, but he was in the fight again. If you allow Ken Roczen to run at the front and be in the fight for long enough. Just the way he won that Triple Crown race, the first Triple Crown in Houston, had that been the main event, he wins Houston also. Keep that in mind. He's gonna get the job done eventually. Because he's so fast at the beginning of the race, the first 10 minutes, man, he is whites out good. And that's what got Hunter. That is what Hunter succumbed to. And Hunter didn't shy away from it. He just said, I'm not good enough in the first 10 minutes. I can't. Well, he's not that he can't. He. He's not executing. He's not figuring out the good lines where Kenny's gotten him in the. He got him in the sand this weekend. He's not figuring out the sprint lines in the first few minutes. And that is where Roczen excels. He is so good at that. Maybe the best I've ever seen. Truly maybe the best I've ever seen at it. Stu would give him a run. Stu. Stu is incredible at this also, but he would just blow past people like everybody's. And I was very bad at this. I would want to like, kind of let the race unfold a bit, find my rhythm, find my footing, whatever cliche you want to, want to use. I just wasn't great early, at least in American Supercross. In Europe, I was much better at it because I just knew I had to go. But in America, I would kind of wanted to let things play out a bit and then really like take advantage of people in the last six or seven minutes. Obviously at the front, those guys are long gone, but the guys that I was worried about beating, I could usually use that. The problem was guys I was capable of racing with late would be long gone. And that happens to other guys. That's the same dynamic that's happening with Hunter. If Hunter could get to Roczen with three or four laps to go, he's got plenty. He has the pace, he has the fitness. He has, I would say probably more fitness and the ability late to get the job done than Roczen does. But if Roczen can build up a gap, guess what? It doesn't matter. He negates any chance because he just yards everybody in the first whatever, six, eight, 10 minutes. And that's what he did this weekend. It is, it is his playbook. He's been doing it for years. And if they allow him to do it, and I shouldn't even say allow him, if they can't prevent it from happening, he will continue to do it. He knows how, he knows what he's doing. He knows where his strengths are. And everybody else does too. Everybody that is racing each other at that level, they all know their strengths and weaknesses and they're all pressing as hard as they can on both sides of the coin to get their way. It's a, it's truly a battle of wills between those guys, the sprinters and the super fit guys that are, that are really good from coming from behind and charging late. They are both trying to implement their game plan and, and the other rider is trying to disallow that game plan from playing out. It's as simple as I can put it. Number three is Cooper Webb and he, you know, like every rider, is always looking for a silver lining. For Webb. His worst racetrack, statistically, he still gets on the podium. The lead went from 17 to 15. That's all you need. He wouldn't even look deeper than that. He won't even care past that doesn't matter. I don't need to hear anything else. We're on to Seattle. That's the way everybody's going to look at things. Hunter Lawrence in the same boat is. Is not. I haven't talked about him yet, but I'm going to use him here because it's a silver lining. No, I didn't win the race, but hey, four, four second places in a row. I had the first have the red plate Monster supercross for the first time ever. Awesome. We're on to see like everybody's going to take what they want from the weekend, take their little snippet of information and, and lean into that and whatever they don't like about the weekend, push it out of their mind and forget about it. That is so typical of racers to do. I learned it from Chad Reed. Probably the most is that you take what you want, you take the most valuable lesson, you take what is going to build your confidence and keep you in the right mindset and you absolutely disregard everything else and pretend it's irrelevant. Pretend it doesn't even exist. I've never seen anybody be able to do it the way Chad Reed does it, but he did it to a tee. And I think Cooper Webb can do that type of thing too, where he's just going to be like, yep, podium check. Don't like this racetrack. Got it done anyway. Got the lead closer than where it was a week ago. And on we go. That's all you need. So Cooper Webb is three and he is working there 15 points down. Number two is Ey Tomac. And I'm sure somebody out there is going, but he's third in points and he crash two weeks in a row. Yeah, I know, I know, I know. But I still think had Ey Tomac gotten a good start, he went. I think he would have won the race. Like I think all things considered right now, if all things are equal, I think Eli wins the races. I really do believe that. If I think Seattle, if he gets a decent start, I think he's going to win the race. I think he's the best rider right now. Things haven't been working out for him. Can't crash. You know that the Houston crash was totally his fault. And then this weekend you could also say it's his fault because he didn't get a good start. But then Christian Craig went down right in front of him and he didn't have anywhere to go. So Partially his fart, partially not. But you have to put yourself in good situations. That is a part of racing, that is a part of winning championships is keeping yourself out of trouble. And you keep yourself out of trouble by starting ahead of it. Start ahead of it and you don't have to deal with the headaches of those things that typically go on near the rear of the pack. This time it kind of happened near the front. But guess who didn't get caught up in it? Prado, Friesy, Roczen, Hunter, etc. Tomac did. It's how it goes. You gotta get better jump than that. He nailed. Like, if you want to see an almost picture perfect start, I don't know that you can do it much better. He wheelies a little bit about halfway down. Outside of that, Eli Tomac's heat race start was as good as you can do it, truly. Like, that's as. That's as good as you can do it in racing. That's a holeshot 99.8% of the time. I'm just telling you. The main event was not it though. He blew it in the main event, so doesn't mean anything if you can't do it on a repeatable basis. But man, that heat race start was just. It was beautiful to watch, truly. So I still have tomac2 because I believe he is the best rider. But when you drop to third in points, I'm going to have to reflect that in the power rankings. And that means one thing. Hunter Lawrence is number one. He has gone to the top. It's the first time, I think it's the first time I've ever had him at the top. I do. I think this is the first appearance for him ever at the top of the power rankings. It's probably overdue, but here we are. So congratulations, Hunter. The consistency is getting the job done. He's getting good starts. His pace is really good. A win is coming. If he keeps putting himself here, a win is going to show up. I don't know when. Doesn't have to be anytime soon. But if you keep starting top three and you ride the way he's riding, he's going to win a race. And I don't know what this means for the championship. I don't know. Like, I don't have him as the favorite to win the championship. I don't. But I think he deserves his moment in the sun right here at the top of the power rankings. So good job. Hunter Lawrence. He and I's relationship has come around a lot. I think he used to not care for me too much, but I was pretty critical of him once upon a time, so I kind of get that. I kind of understand why he would not be thrilled with me, but as I have kind of changed my thoughts about him and really had to come around on how excellent he. He is. He has also come around and we talk all the time now. You know, I see him out and I had dinner with him a couple weeks ago and. And I truly enjoy. I don't know if we're friends. I hope that we're friends. I consider him a friend. That's, you know, it's always like, Mathis always jokes, like, I don't know if these guys think I'm their friend or, you know, like, I. I consider Hunter a friend now, which is cool. I think he's a great guy. He has a great head on his shoulders. He has a really unique perspective on racing and life. He's, I think, pretty hard on himself. I think he understands that he's doing well, but he's also so analytical that he's always kind of thinking about what to do better versus, like, enjoying the moment sometimes. And I probably shouldn't do this, but I do it anyway because I like him as a friend. I'm like, man, you gotta enjoy. And I've told this story on this podcast before, probably other ones, but a person very, very high up at Feld once told me, because he knew how hard I am on myself about mistakes and not doing things right on the show and just not saying things exactly how I want them. And he pulled me aside one time and said, hey, you've got to learn to enjoy when things go well. Like, it doesn't mean you just forever relish in that moment, but you've got to be able to smile when things go your way. Otherwise, what are you doing it all for? There are going to be plenty of times where you know you got it wrong and you'll work on it, but when you do something right, at least enjoy it, even if it's for five minutes. He's like, I would like, just give yourself the night to enjoy it and then get back to work the next day. But you've got to take those moments, otherwise you're just going to be miserable all the time and there's no outlet. There's no reason to be doing this if it's all for not. And it was wonderful advice. I've really tried to take it to heart, and I see that in Hunter. I see that him needing to do that sometimes and it's not my place to say it. He doesn't have to listen to me. But you know what? I'm going to do it anyway because I have been in similar situations. I wasn't as good as Hunter Lawrence, we all know that. But I've been in similar situations and lived that life he's living. And I wish I knew or realized a little bit more of that then. I do realize it now. It's still a constant fight, but I see Hunter kind of going down the same path and fighting the same demons on that front. So I hope he's enjoying the moment. I hope when he gets on his bike this week and it has red number plates on it that he at least smiles to himself a little bit and it's okay to understand that the job's not done and you haven't won a race yet and nothing's been, you know, nothing's final. That's okay. Again, I say this a lot, but both things can be true. I just hope he smiles inside, right? Like his heart has a little bit of joy for a moment, understanding that he's at the top of the sport right now. He is the points leader of the most competitive championship on the planet, full stop. Like, at least for our sport anyway. Like motorcycles, whatever. This is his chosen discipline. This is as good as it gets. So congratulations, Hunter Lawrence. And that is it for this week. 36 minutes longer than actually planned on doing. I hope you enjoyed it. I certainly did. And we will be back. I'm telling you, it's going to be sooner. I'm going to do this damn thing on Sunday. So we will talk to you then. See you.