Chase Sexton’s 2024 Monster Energy AMA Supercross as the #1 was less than ideal. Defending a title is no joke, plus doing so on an all-new bike was going to make the feat even more difficult than it was going be from the get-go. Then, he was not gelling with the bike much—nowhere near where he was on the Honda CRF450R he won the 2023 450SX title on. In fact, Sexton told media on Friday that one week prior to Anaheim 1 last year he was not hitting the whoops because he was that uncomfortable with the KTM 450 SX-F! He managed to pick up a win in the second round in San Francisco, California, but his only other win came at the finale in Salt Lake City, Utah. Everything between was a struggle. Come the AMA Pro Motocross Championship, things got better, and Sexton pulled off the 450 Class Championship with some incredible rides. But then the SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX) playoff rounds again saw Sexton as a passenger on the all-too-familiar struggle bus.
Fast forward to this year and Sexton said he was better. In December at the SMX media days ahead of the season, Sexton said he felt “Like a different guy riding.” So, had he turned things around? Yesterday when speaking during the media day activities, he was more confident and seemed ready for the challenge of battling for the title. And when the gates dropped tonight, boy did he back up those claims!
The orange #4 machine cruised to a relatively uncontested heat race win, then after Eli Tomac crashed out of the lead in the main event and Jorge Prado and Jason Anderson briefly led, the #4 got back into P1 in the important race. From there, it was go time. Checking out, Sexton rode home a fast but smooth ride, taking the checkered flag and the championship lead after crossing the finish line for his tenth 450SX main event win—and his first season opener win. This was only one race, but he looked better than he did almost all of 2024 supercross—and that in itself is essentially a win. But he also physically won the race, too. It was literally a win-win.
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After the race, he took a celebration lap, pointing, waving, and revving his bike to the crowd’s cheers.
“Yeah, it was definitely a relief,” he said after winning tonight. “Getting a win early in the season is always nice like I said, but Anaheim 1, just being in California, like the birthplace of supercross and motocross. And also a big, big crowd tonight. It's always nice to win in front of a lot of people. So, that was nice and obviously, yeah, I like to enjoy when I win, so I go take a little sight lap and enjoy it.”
“But, yeah, tonight was crazy. A lot of stuff going on behind me, or even Eli in front of me, so I don't really take that into account. I just go out there and focus on myself, and that's one thing that I really tried to improve on is just staying in my lane and being very tunnel vision as far as what I'm focused on. If I start worrying about other things, it goes it goes south, so. Can't control anybody else. I can only control what I do, and that's what I feel like when I'm on. I'm tough to beat, at least that's my goal is to kind of replicate that every race and try and put myself in a good position. Like Jason [Anderson] said, it's hard to pass these guys, everyone's so good and everyone's on rails. So, when you get a bad start, you're just putting yourself in chaos like I did in Vegas, and that didn't end up very well. So, get good starts and get out front.”
Statement ride from @_ChaseSexton 🗣️#SMX #SupercrossLIVE pic.twitter.com/WjYk1k5y0v
— Supercross LIVE! (@SupercrossLIVE) January 12, 2025
So, is this repeatable? The Illinois native backed up his claims after the race.
“Yeah, I'm not planning on settling anytime soon,” he said. “I still think there's stuff that I can be better, and I wouldn't say that it was a perfect race by me, there's stuff that I need to obviously improve on, and it's a long season, so I need to obviously go back to work. But also celebrate tonight and then, yeah, go back to work on Tuesday at the track. But yeah, today was definitely, I feel like repeatable, and it was just nice feeling the flow again. I haven't really felt that since, since outdoors last year and before that was in supercross the year before, so I felt the flow and I felt bad. I actually, I ran over Eli the first lap. I had nowhere to go and I felt bad, but, yeah, I know it was a good race and just had a really good feeling on the track.”
“Definitely, I was just more looking for a feel all last year that I never really found,” he added later. “In outdoors, I felt good, and I never really changed and it was a pretty awesome summer, but then I went back to SMX and I kind of was like starting back at zero. I didn't really know where to go and we didn't make much progress. And then this off-season we really narrowed in on what we needed to work on. One was starts and two was getting a better feeling on the bike. And it was actually Monday before this race this week that I found the feeling that I was looking for, or at least towards that direction. So, last minute, but I knew after Monday we were gonna be in a good spot and I felt racey and back to kind of being explosive.”
If he can harness the speed he had back in his Honda days—and, yes, there were mistakes— but he was insanely fast and could run with everyone on any given night. If Sexton is able to replicate that, watch out competitors.
