2026 SX...No Free Practice

2026 Supercross Qualifying: No Free Practice, Two 12-Minute Qualifying Sessions

Last week at the 2026 SMX Media Days, our media room of reporters had on the record conversations with over 40 individuals in two days. While this time was mostly with riders, we also got on-record interviews with Feld’s Mike Muye and Dave Prater from the SX operations/management side, plus Ken Adelson from the TV broadcast department. In our talks with Mike Muye, the Sr. Director of Operations for Supercross, we learned about a big change to the race day schedule for Monster Energy AMA Supercross.

Muye confirmed the new race day schedule for ’26 supercross events will not have free practice. That’s right, free practice sessions (eight minutes per session) will go away and instead of two ten-minute qualifying sessions like there were in 2025, there will now be no free practice sessions and instead just two 12-minute qualifying sessions. Steve Matthes has mentioned this previously, but now we have it confirmed directly from Muye. (Note, the 2026 Monster Energy AMA Supercross rulebook and the '26 Anaheim 1 SX race day schedule have yet to be posted publicly, but we will post a link to them once they are released.)

Here is Muye explaining the change.

“I think the big thing this year that we focused on was the amount of track maintenance that we want to incorporate in," he said. "So, we've made the decision to remove free practices, and we'll be running two qualifying sessions at 12 minute[s] each. And we use the majority of that extra time for track maintenance and rebuilding portions of the rhythm lanes and those types of things. Whoops are always challenging just because of the time that it takes to build them, but hopefully with the reduced amount of traffic over the whoops, they won't break down as much.”

 

Mike Muye at the SMX Media Days in California.Mitch Kendra

With free practice not counting for overall qualifying sessions, eliminating these sessions does eliminate the risk factor for riders pushing it in a session that has no result on qualifying position. This change makes it so that each time riders are on track, it counts for something. 

He continued to say the schedule is flexible when it comes to the night show/main program as he said, “We can adjust the schedule as much as we need to: we have a three-hour broadcast window and that’s what we fit into.”

Muye noted the emphasis on rider safety too, especially when it comes to the whoops. Previously, the decision was made to go to nine whoops at each round, with hopes to cut down on the number of crashes in the dangerous and tricky obstacle. However, Muye said we will see a few races in ’26 with varying number of whoops and a few tracks with ten or 11 whoops are in the plan. The whoops section has been a talking point the last few years as Feld and the AMA continue to navigate the fine line of allowing a tricky track that separates riders but also creates good racing while also maintaining a safe racetrack.

He also noted the team is looking at options for in-helmet communications, which might be a possibility in the near future—although not for 2026. He did say if there would be any communication devices used that it would only be one way, so the riders would not be able to talk back. That is an ongoing discussion.

All in all, Muye, among the other personnel within the supercross division of Feld Motor Sports, wants the sport to grow and they are always looking at options for improvement on every front when it comes to the racing, safety, broadcast, and more.