Last weekend the 2020 Monster Energy Supercross series headed to Arlington, Texas, for round eight of the 450SX season.

Eli Tomac went in with the red plate as points leader, with a four-point advantage over Ken Roczen, and Cooper Webb also well in the mix. 

It turned out to be a dramatic night of racing, with the talking points starting before the end of the day show, with Adam Cianciarulo crashing hard when he missed the last whoop on the dragons back with his front wheel, and landed face-down on the jump face of the supercross triple, breaking his collarbone. The injury meant Cianciarulo lost his record of qualifying fastest for every race in 2020 – Justin Hill replaced him at the top of the qualifying sheets – and more importantly was unable to race that evening, and probably for a few more to come, as well. 

The first main event of this triple crown format was somewhat ominous for everyone other than Ken Roczen, who took his fourth straight main event win in a triple crown round. Meanwhile, Eli Tomac had a poor start and spent the moto cutting his way through to fifth. It looked as though the red-plate-holder would have been able to get fourth away from Justin Barcia as well, but the Yamaha rider was able to pull away from the Kawasaki in the closing stages of the first race.

Cooper Webb and Jason Anderson also got their respective nights off to good starts, finishing second and third, respectively, while Justin Hill, Zach Osborne, Malcolm Stewart, Aaron Plessinger and Blake Baggett completed the top ten for the first main event of the evening. 

Things got worse for Webb in the second moto, making the same mistake as Cianciarulo had done earlier mid-way through the second main event. Webb went down even harder than Cianciarulo, landing on his back on the concrete as the side of the track. It was a worrying period just after the crash, but Webb came away from it without any major critical injuries. Nonetheless, he was out for the night, and took only twelfth place overall for eleven points.

Tomac turned his night around in the second main, taking the win, whilst Anderson continued his strong performance of the first race to take second ahead of Justin Hill who made some strong moves through the pack to come from the lower reaches of the top ten to finish third. Zach Osborne also rode better in the second main, finishing fourth, ahead of Justin Barcia and Malcolm Stewart. 

Ken Roczen’s evening took a turn for the worse, however, finishing only seventh, and losing the lead in the overall as a result. Behind him were Blake Baggett, Dean Wilson and Aaron Plessinger who completed the second top ten of the night.

The third main event proved to be one of the best races of the year, if not the best outright. Zach Osborne took the early lead, but had Anderson and Roczen close in tow. Tomac made a poor start but was able to cut through quickly, and soon got up to fourth. The quartet were able to pull away from the rest, and fought amongst themselves for the final win of the night. 

The presence of Tomac at the back of the group cause a ripple effect, with the pressure he was applying to Roczen causing the Honda rider to put more pressure on Anderson for second, and the 2018 champion in turn putting more pressure on his Rockstar Energy Husqvarna teammate, Osborne, for the lead.

Anderson was eventually able to pass Osborne, but was unable to pull away. This would eventually cost him.

Tomac took charge of the situation, over Roczen, as he passed the #94 two laps after Anderson took the lead from Osborne. A lap later and Tomac was through on Osborne, too. It then took Tomac two laps to find a way through on Anderson, and although the Husqvarna rider tried to fight back, Tomac’s defence was solid and eventually he was able to get away. 

Although Roczen was able to pass Osborne just a couple of laps after Tomac, he was never able to pass Anderson. In fact, at the very end Anderson was able to pull away from Roczen before he went down at the end of the whoops section on the last lap.

Whilst Tomac took the third main event win – his second of the night – and the overall with it – his second in succession – Roczen was able to pick up second place in both the final race and the overall thanks to Anderson’s late crash.

That crash from the #21 also cost him a top three in the final main, with Osborne taking third ahead of Barcia, whilst Anderson came home fifth, but still kept hold of third on the night overall.

For all three of the podium finishers these results were important: Tomac retains the red plate and goes to round nine for just the fifth time in his career as the points leader; Roczen keeps the points lead within sight (he is still just seven points down on Tomac); and Anderson responds well after two difficult weekends in San Diego and Tampa.

Behind them in the overall was Justin Barcia, who seems to be becoming the fourth place guy, which for now that is keeping him just about within reach of the championship fight. 

Zach Osborne has been the opposite of Barcia this year – remarkably inconsistent. Still, the #16 returned to the top five in Arlington, something he will hope to be a turning point in his season. 

It was another solid top six for Justin Hill in Arlington, building on his strong form from Tampa, beating teammate Malcolm Stewart who was seventh. Aaron Plessinger was seventh, ahead of Dean Wilson – who had a complicated night with two falls in the first two mains – and Blake Baggett, who completed the top ten.

Further back, Chad Reed had the best result of his final AMA Supercross season, finishing thirteenth; while Justin Brayton crashed five times – more than he has the past few seasons in total – over the course of the night, and ended up twenty-first, and beat up.

Round eight of the 2020 monster Energy Supercross season in Arlington already looks as though it is going to be a punishing one.

The track is more interesting than that of Tampa one week ago, with some interesting line choice, particularly in the main rhythm lane that comes before the whoops section, as well as the short section beforehand. Jason Anderson had an interesting line through the shorter section in the 450s, pushing the front wheel down in the middle to double out. In comparison, Shane McElrath seemed to be the first rider to hit almost a wheel-tap on the second face of that section, to go 1-2-2. McElrath’s line is faster than the perhaps more popular option, which is to roll the first jump before going 2-2 out. 

It was not smooth sailing for McElrath, though, as he went to the top of the board in 250A first timed qualifying, as he crashed on a notch in the turn before the whoops. Also noticeable in that turn, particularly in 250s, was the corner speed of Chase Sexton as he railed around the top before skimming the whoops going from far left to mid-right. 

The corner nearly claimed Malcolm Stewart when 450A qualifying got underway. He tucked the front wheel but managed to save it.

The whoops, in structure, look not so bad, but the set was extended compared to the track map published earlier in the week. Where before the set was preceded by a double, that double has been removed so the whole straight is a whoops section. That extension makes this whoops section in Arlington the longest of the season, and that is proving problematic for some riders, because a mistake can ruin the whole section, whereas in a shorter set you might get away with a mistake. 

The track is also breaking down quite hard, especially in the first turn after the finish, where already after the first two sets of practices there were two or three pretty deep ruts developing. That’s in addition to the bumps in the turn before the whoops. It promises to be quite a technical track with what seems to be quite soft dirt, which could lead to substantial breaking down of the whoops, which in 450SX could play into the hands of Cooper Webb, who is perhaps the best rider at jumping whoops and figuring out the fastest rhythm.

Adam Cianciarulo’s reign at the top of the qualifying times in the first part of his rookie 450SX season was ended in first qualifying in Arlington. The #9 rider broke his left collarbone in a crash at the triple after the dragons back. The injury rules him out of Arlington, and possibly out of the next two or three rounds of the season, too, depending on how the break is and whether it needs surgery.

With Cianciarulo ruled out, Justin Hill took over from the top, with Eli Tomac and Martin Davalos completing the top three. Cooper Webb took fourth place, whilst Jason Anderson took fifth place after a sketchy moment in the whoops saw him collect a medical team member, who walked away okay.

Tonight the 2020 Monster Energy AMA Supercross, an FIM World Championship drops the gate in Arlington for round eight of the season. 

For the first time this year, and only the fourth time in his career, Eli Tomac heads into a Supercross race with the red plate, having overtaken Ken Roczen in the points last weekend in Tampa. 

Tomac’s Tampa performance was quite impressive, with much more speed than anyone else, and looking pretty safe whilst he was at it. Additionally, Tomac’s starts in Tampa were good, which had previously been his major problem in 2020. If that continues into this weekend, the rest of the pack may need to worried. 

However, this season has been consistently inconsistent. It feels like every time we arrive to a new race, we’re expecting something to happen, a particular rider or number of riders to be up front, and almost every week the prediction does not represent the reality. 

For example, this weekend in Arlington will be the second Triple Crown event of the season, after Glendale earlier this year. The previous Triple Crown saw Roczen dominate, winning all three Main Events and taking the overall quite comfortably as a result. It therefore would be reasonable to expect that Roczen will be competitive, and maybe even have an advantage over his competitors, tonight in Arlington.

However, Roczen’s starts in the past few weeks have fallen off a little, whereas Adam Cianciarulo’s have picked up. In these shorter Main Events, Cianciarulo’s late-race struggles might be less apparent, and his starts will be more advantageous since his rivals will have less time to recover time if he gets out front early as he did in San Diego and Tampa. 

However, the whoops section in Texas tonight is pretty long, and the whoops have been Cianciarulo’s downfall in the past two weeks, as well as in the last Triple Crown in Glendale. 

In comparison, Cooper Webb’s performance in the whoops has improved quite dramatically since Oakland, and his goal will presumably continue to be the fastest rider in the whoops tonight. Additionally, Webb is the fastest rider at jumping the whoops, and should they become jumpers tonight, Webb could be in prime position. Triple Crowns mean more laps, which means there is more scope for the track to get more beaten up, and those whoops could get chewed up pretty bad over the course of night with that in mind. Webb could be in the pound seat, at least for the last Main Event. Expect the reigning champion to get better as the night goes on. 

His ride went pretty under the radar in Tampa last week, as he went from around thirteenth to fourth, but Justin Barcia was fast last Saturday. If he figures a couple starts out in Texas tonight he could be in the mix for a decent overall finish and perhaps close down his deficit to the points leader, which currently stands at twenty points. 

This will be the first Triple Crown event for the 250SX East riders this weekend, as they enter their second round of the season. Shane McElrath dominated the opening race last weekend in Tampa, winning by a couple of seconds over Chase Sexton, the reigning East Coast champion. The parity between the riders in 250SX East category at the top is quite high, so it is difficult to predict an outcome of this weekend’s race – the individual Mains and the overall – but for sure there should be five or six riders in the mix, with McElrath, Sexton and the third podium finisher from Tampa, Jeremy Martin, expecting to fight at the front, along with Garrett Marchbanks, Jordon Smith and RJ Hampshire, who were fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively, last weekend.

Last weekend, the 250SX East regional series got underway in AMA Supercross, and with some interesting rider swaps in the off-season, there was much anticipation to see how the field stacked up.

On paper, the field is pretty even, with Chase Sexton, carrying the #1E, going up against the likes of RJ Hampshire, Shane McElrath, Jordon Smith, Garrett Marchbanks, Jeremy Martin and more as he defends his title. 

However, McElrath on the #12 Star Racing Yamaha put on a clinic in Tampa for round one, extending his lead out to as much as ten seconds, similar to how Eli Tomac dominated the 450SX Main Event. 

McElrath led from the off, passing holeshot winner, Jordon Smith, in the first rhythm of the track, and escaping from there. Although in the final stages of the race McElrath’s lead was trimmed to 2.962 seconds by Chase Sexton, his victory never seemed in doubt in his first race for Star Yamaha, who he joined over the off-season after departing Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull KTM.

McElrath’s round one win means Sexton loses the red plate for round two in Arlington coming up this weekend. That said, there are positives for the reigning champion to take out of the first race, primarily that he came back from an average start – ending lap one in fourth before engaging in a multi-bike fight with the likes of Smith, Marchbanks, Martin and Hampshire as McElrath edged away. 

After Sexton cleared the fight, he was able to build an almost five-second gap between him and eventual third-place finisher Jeremy Martin, who walks away with a podium from his first Supercross since 2018 after qualifying fastest. 

Garrett Marchbanks has been widely regarded as the ‘most improved’ rider in 250SX East from 2019 to 2020, with the Pro Circuit Kawasaki rider finishing fourth in the first race of the new season, ahead of experienced teammate Jordon Smith who took fifth place in front of RJ Hampshire. The order at the chequered flag does not tell the whole story of the repective races of these three riders, with each rising and falling throughout the race, Hampshire the most spectacularly as he went off next to the finish line in the middle of the race which cost him touch with the PC Kawasaki riders.

Hampshire finished almost twenty seconds adrift of Smith in the end, but still nine seconds clear of Kyle Peters, who was seventh and the first of the non-factory riders. Behind Peters was Joey Crown, who finished eighth in his first ever Supercross Main Event. 

Ninth place went to James Decotis after winning the LCQ. Decotis was content with just being able to race after a crash earlier in the week which left his physical condition far from perfect. The top ten was rounded out by rookie, Jo Shimoda.

Eleventh went to Jace Owen, who finished ahead of welcome returnee Josh Hill, Cedric Soubeyras, Nick Gaines, John Short, Jerry Robin, Jordan Bailey, Hunter Sales, Enzo Lopes, and Justin Starling who completed the top twenty. 

Twenty-first place went to Isaac Teasdale, and last over the line was Curren Thurman.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the night, performance-wise, was Jalek Swoll on his Supercross debut for the factory Rockstar Energy Husqvarna team, with the 18-year-old missing the Main completely after losing out in the final whoops section of the LCQ to Teasdale. Being on a factory team brings with it the pressure of performing, and missing Main Events does not count as ‘performing’. Such a disappointing performance means there is much for Swoll to prove next weekend in Arlington.

It was an eventful night of racing in Tampa for the first east coast round of the 2020 Monster Energy AMA Supercross season.

Eli Tomac came out victorious over Cooper Webb and Ken Roczen to take the red plate to round eight. The #3 rider was dominant once again, winning by almost ten seconds over the defending champion. So far, Tomac has not been able to go back to back, but in one week we will see whether claiming the red plate will help change that for the 2019 championship runner-up.

For the first part of the race, Tomac was following teammate Adam Cianciarulo who led the early phases after Vince Friese took the holeshot. A different line in the sand straight from Tomac saw him pass Cianciarulo around the outside in the sand turn. 

Cianciarulo was able to follow Tomac within a few seconds for a few laps, but then crashed in the whoops and got stuck on the side of the track for a while, losing a lot of time and dropping back to tenth. 

Webb and Roczen started fifth and sixth, but fought through to finish second and third, respectively. It was a relatively straightforward ride for Webb, who with a better start may have had more to say about Tomac, but nonetheless fought his way through the Hondas of Friese and Malcolm Stewart quite well. 

Roczen passed Stewart soon after Webb, but fell on the landing of the first Supercross triple, tucking the front wheel as he tried to get into the turn. It was therefore a decent recovery from Roczen, who loses the red plate but goes into next weekend only four points down on Tomac. 

Fourth place went to Justin Barcia who had a fantastic second half of the race after starting towards the back. Some, arguably typical, aggressive passes from the factory Yamaha rider saw him cut through the pack in the closing stages and take fourth place from Justin Hill on the final lap, with Hill ending a good ride in fifth, his best Main Event finish of the season. 

Dean Wilson also collected his best Main result of 2020 with sixth, and should be encouraged by his endurance in Tampa, with the #15 still not fully recovered from the injury from last season. 

Behind Wilson was Malcolm Stewart who, early on, looked good for maybe a podium, but after he was passed by Webb things started to go wrong for the #27 and by the end he was under serious siege, dropping to seventh by the end. Still, Stewart showed tonight that the speed is there for him, perhaps it just needs to be married with some more consistency.

Jason Anderson had another difficult night. A poor start in the heat compromised somewhat his gate pick, and then the #21 spent the Main in the back end of the top ten, only picking up a position when Cianciarulo went down. The 2018 champion ended eighth, ahead of the aforementioned Cianciarulo who was close at the end and Justin Brayton who completed the top ten. 

Zach Osborne was at the lower reaches of the top twenty at the start, but recovered to eleventh by the end. Still suffering from a lack of weight and energy, a result of his pre-Anaheim 1 illness, starts are important for Osborne at the minute, and a bad one tonight left him with little margin. 

Just over one second back of Osborne was Broc Tickle, who finished an impressive twelfth on his return to racing with JGR Suzuki. Vince Friese came home in a somewhat disappointing thirteenth after holeshotting; Martin Davalos was fourteenth ahead of Tyler Bowers and a very disappointing Aaron Plessinger; Kyle Chisholm; Kyle Cunningham; Chad Reed who once again had to pass through the LCQ; and Ryan Breece who completed the top twenty.

Adam Enticknap made his first Main Event of 2020, whilst Blake Baggett qualified straight out of his heat race, but in said heat he suffered a pretty heavy crash on the opening lap, which may well be the reason he did not line up for the Main.

Qualifying is done in Tampa and already the East Coast has claimed its first victim in the 250SX category, with Brian Moreau crashing out of the first free practice session, forcing him to withdraw from the meeting completely and leaving Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull KTM team without representation for this first round of the 250SX East series – certainly a contrast to the consistency of Brandon Hartranft on the West. 

In the 450SX class there was also a big crash for Alex Ray who went down heavily in the second qualifying session bringing out the red flag.

The track itself seems interesting. The sand both in the straight(away) and in the turn, looks much softer and looser than what we saw, for example, in San Diego one week ago with the split-lane turn after the second set of whoops. That softness and looseness is providing issues, especially for the 250 riders, with their momentum being sapped by the surface, and entering the turn on the tighter line makes things complicated and maintaining momentum difficult. 

Line choice-wise, there doesn’t appear to be much outside of the sand straight, which is a split-lane section, with both lanes leading to a different line for the sand turn which follows. 

After the sand section is a right-handed berm, which is perhaps the most important turn on the track. Get the turn right and you can hit 3-3-3 on the next straight, mess the turn up and you’re forced into 2-2-2-3, the difference between the two timewise being stark. 

A third interesting talking point on the track is the whoops section before the finish, with some riders jumping even in qualifying. They’re quite a big set, and with such a hard base you might assume the way they break down will be different to San Diego one week ago, where the two whoops sections proved so critical in both 250SX and 450SX mains. However, looking at how they broke down in the day, figuring out how to jump them could once again prove vital to success tonight.

That hard base is also bringing a low-grip scenario, which is to be expected. Being patient with the power could be critical come the night show. 

As for the standings, Jeremy Martin came back with a bang in the 250 class, hitting the top of the times, whilst in the premier class it was once again Adam Cianciarulo who topped the timesheets for the seventh time out of seven in 2020, just over a tenth ahead of Monster Energy Kawasaki teammate, Eli Tomac. The two KX450 riders were the only ones to get inside 48 seconds, Ken Roczen qualifying third, two tenths behind Tomac, and 0.003 seconds ahead of last week’s winner Cooper Webb, whilst Jason Anderson completed the top five. Malcolm Stewart also showed well in sixth place, ahead of Blake Baggett. On his return to Supercross racing, Broc Tickle was fifteenth in qualifying for JGR Suzuki.

This weekend the Monster Energy AMA Supercross series heads to Tampa for the seventh round of the 450SX season, and the opener for the 250SX East regional series.

Interest will be across both classes, with Cooper Webb taking his first win of the season one week ago in San Diego in a quality duel with his long-term rival Adam Cianciarulo.

Similarly, Cianciarulo comes into round seven of the series in the best form he’s seen since the first round of the 450SX season in Anaheim in the beginning of January, when he also finished second, that time to Justin Barcia.

Barcia himself arrives in Tampa off the back of a controversial weekend, where he clashed with both Martin Davalos (on press day) and Eli Tomac in the Main Event, with Barcia’s aggressive riding not going down too well with the #3 factory Monster Energy Kawasaki rider. 

Throughout this season, Tomac has almost been paired with Ken Roczen. They both had a tough time in A1, before trading the top two places for the following three races in St. Louis, back again in Anaheim and Glendale, before Webb got between them in Oakland. 

Both Tomac and Roczen suffered difficult starts in San Diego, but from that point onwards there paths diverged. 

Tomac had podium pace and be it not for the two or three laps he was fighting with Barcia (regardless of your opinion on whether Barcia was right or wrong to ride how he did) he probably would have reached Blake Baggett who kind of floated under the radar to finish third last weekend. Tomac finished fourth in the end, cutting the gap to Roczen, who finished sixth, to one point. 

The result was perhaps not the most frustrating or alarming part for Roczen, but rather the way in which he arrived to it. Had Roczen had a start similar to that of Tomac in his heat race, starting near the back, a charge through to sixth would have been looked at as ‘okay’. However, Roczen started this Main ahead of Tomac, and was pressuring Barcia for fourth before the factory Kawasaki rider passed him for fifth. From that point, Roczen kind of fell off. He had a decent chance to pass Barcia when the Yamaha rider checked up as Tomac finally made a pass stick on the #51, but Roczen appeared timid and hesitant. And this came after a dominant heat race win of over ten seconds. If San Diego turns out to be the worst race of Roczen’s season, then he should be in good shape, but it will be important for the #94 that such results are not repeated, especially with Webb now opening up his win tally for 2020.

In 250s this weekend, we will see the beginning of a new championship, and one that will start in a similar vein to the West Coast series. Before Anaheim 1, it was questioned whether Dylan Ferrandis was the favourite for the West series in 2020. The Frenchman held the #1W, but was somewhat gifted the championship in 2019 by Adam Cianciarulo who fell at the final round in Las Vegas.

Similarly, the 250SX East title was somewhat handed to Chase Sexton last season when Ferrandis’ main 2020 title rival, Pro Circuit Kawasaki’s Austin Forkner, crashed out of the season with a knee injury. 

As such, Sexton comes into this weekend with something to prove, and it will be interesting to see if the #1E can respond to the pressure. 

The Honda rider’s challengers include GEICO Honda teammate, Jeremy Martin, who comes into this weekend off the back of a nasty injury suffered at Muddy Creek; RJ Hampshire (that’s Hampsheer) at Rockstar Energy Husqvarna; Shane McElrath (like McGrath) who moves to Star Yamaha; Jordon Smith who moves along with McElrath from TLD KTM only for Smith the movement sees him land at Pro Circuit Kawasaki. As Jason Weigandt notes in his 250SX East preview for RacerX, the experience of both Smith and McElrath makes 2020 almost ‘make or break’ for the pair of them.

With all that’s happened in the 450SX class so far in 2020, and the beginning of a new 250SX East series, this weekend in Tampa promises to be fascinating at the very least.

I’m Alex Whitworth, and this is Super Crossed Up, a blog where I will share my thoughts on the upcoming rounds of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross, an FIM World Championship.

Admittedly, I am pretty late to the party, but after missing the first rounds of the west coast, I decided to hold off until 250SX East got underway, which it does this weekend in Tampa.

That said, in the coming days I will have some posts where I give my thoughts and (un-requested) opinions on last weekend’s action in San Diego.

In this blog you can expect to see race previews, reviews and reaction to the bigger talking points that pop up in the remainder of this year’s AMA Supercross season, all from the eyes of a rookie, a beginner, a noob, and – even worse – a Brit.

It’s my first year watching Supercross, having followed it through social media the last season or two. My intention is for my lack of experience watching Supercross to invite challenge to my opinions and what I say in this blog. I know I’m not going to be correct 100% of the time, and I want you, the reader, to call me out on that.

With that being said, I look forward to your input and feedback, and I hope you enjoy this blog through the end of the season.