After 4 races to start the Supercross season in California, it's now go East, Young Men
Supercross’ month in California comes to an end and early season parity remained the top storyline as Anaheim 2 saw a new overall winner in the 250 and 450 class for the fourth straight week.
Round 4 at Angel Stadium is the only repeated venue on the SMX schedule. A2 still has a different identity from A1 with a course rework and a format change. A2 is the first of three Triple Crown races, meaning that heats are eliminated from the program, and instead, the top 22 riders race in three shortened features with the overall winner having the best average finishing position.
An eventful Triple Crown program in 450 saw Aaron Plessinger narrowly hang on to the red plate. Plessinger secured the points lead last week with his first 450 win at San Diego and followed it up with an unexpected podium at A2.
Aaron Plessinger maintains his hold on the red plate, meaning he remains the points leader in 450SX. Photo: Align Media.
Copper Webb was the overall winner finishing 2-2-5; his nine-point finish was enough for his first victory on a 450 with Yamaha. Webb transitioned from Yamaha to KTM when he originally elevated into the 450 class and this season has been seen as a homecoming after Webb found himself unhappy at his former team.
This win also means that Webb is now the sole owner of the 10 spot on the all-time 450-win list with 22 wins. He is one of only two active riders on the top-10 list, joining series veteran Eli Tomac who sits second on the all-time list with 51 wins.
Copper Webb and teammate Justin Copper fist bump after Webb's win. Photo: Align Media.
Tomac finished second with a 5-7-1 finish and his victory in the final race came to the sound of applause, The Supercross community was excited to see a past champion back on top after what at the time felt like a career-ending injury sustained during Round 16 last year in his hometown of Denver.
This was Tomac’s second podium of the year with the first coming in the mud at San Francisco. It appears that Tomac is riding with more comfort than he was at A1, a large part of that is due to a change in bike setup that returned the feel to what he was used to riding in 2023, a season that he was favored to win until the incident.
“I was pretty frustrated after those first two,” Tomac said of his early season performance. “I was like, ‘Okay, what am I, a fifth (to) seventh place guy right now?’ I don’t know. I just had to go do something, I had to get off the gate there. So it was good, had a good flow. I was able to get the whoop combo down, and I felt like that was important for me.”
While Jason Anderson was originally slated to be on the final step of the podium, race officials reviewed that he made a pass off the track in Race 3 and the difference of position moved him to fourth place overall and brought Plessinger onto the podium with a 6-4-3 finish. Anderson’s corrected finishes were 4-1-8 with the tiebreaker going to the better finish in the final round due to that attrition factor that riders deal with equally.
Standings Shakeup Before Detroit
Between Anderson’s pass of the field and Jett Lawrence crashing his bike on the final lap, timing and scoring had to scramble at the end of the race as everyone volleyed for position. Lawrence was running in third when he crashed, which would’ve placed him on the podium and transferred the red plate from Plessinger to Lawrence, making Jett the first rider in 450’s to carry it twice.
Instead, it stays with Plessinger and he carries his early season momentum into Detroit, a track that last year saw him heartbreakingly lose the chance of his first win on the last lap.
Defending champion Chase Sexton finished in fifth position due to a bad showing in the second race, with a 1-11-2 overall. Sexton holds onto second place in the season standings as his teammate continues to lead him.
With as close as the top of the class has been, there’s only a 13-point difference between sixth place and first place currently, meaning that every position mattered in the final moments. A2 winner Copper Webb now sits third in the standings followed by Jett Lawrence and Tomac. Anderson slipped to sixth with his loss of positions in A2.
250 Recap
Levi Kitchen went 1-2-3 in the 250 West class to secure his first victory of 2024, sharing the podium with RJ Hampshire at Nate Thrasher. It was Hampshire and Kitchen’s third podium of the season and Thrasher’s second.
Kitchen entered the third race with a sizeable buffer between him and the field and just had to watch where Hampshire was on the track to control his victory. Once Hampshire went down, Kitchen knew he could coast to his first win with Kawasaki.
With this win, Kitchen ties Jordon Smith for the series lead at 84 points apiece.
Kitchen celebrates after claiming the overall win at A2 in Anaheim this weekend. Photo: Align Media.
The 250W riders get their first rest week as Supercross heads East for the first time in the 2024 season. This cast of riders will rejoin the 450 class at Glendale, Arizona for Round 6 on February 10th, 2024.
Detroit will open up the season for the East and fans will get the chance to see what the likes of Max Ansie, Austin Forkner, Chase Hymas, and Haiden Deegan can do.