Joel Smets Talks MXGP

FIM 6DAYS Italy Tops 2025

Deegan Cocky?

Deegan on his cocky attitude and going 450

Haiden Deegan spoke to Jason Weigandt on SMX Insider and he gave an insight into why he is so cocky at the races – because it works for him and makes him faster!

“I feel like the way I talk and act and this cocky, arrogant Haiden, is what really makes me better. And I feel like the stuff I say about how I’m going to the 450 class and all this and it’s like, any pressure, I mean, makes me better. And I’m going to be honest, I doubt any of these other guys, the way I talk and act, they could deal with the pressure that comes with it. I do have a lot of pressure that comes with, it is mentally the gnarliest pressure I put on myself.”

Deegan also gave his thoughts on the 450 class and how he feels he can go to another level on the 450

“Everyone’s like, oh, it’s going to be such a culture shock when he gets the 450 class. And I’m like, what? You know, like RJ’s getting on the podium. RJ’s top five, Justin Cooper is getting on the podium and even my rookie season, I was battling with Hunter. I don’t really get it, what people are trying to get at, they’re just trying to find something because I’m so dominant right now, which I mean, go for it, I guess!  But yeah, I mean, it’s definitely going to take some hard work and just really locking in these this next year and getting to that

level. I don’t know what that level is. Maybe it’s going to be easier than I thought. Maybe it’s going to be harder than I thought.

“The 450, when I hopped on it, I was like light years quicker on it. I’m like, I don’t think people understand, a 450, the power is insane, especially the start.  I got on it and I’m like, dude, this has double my 250, I can go way faster on this thing! And it really opened my eyes like the first time I’ve been on it because I’ve only ever ridden a stock 450.

“I got on that factory bike and I’m like, now I can see why these guys at the Pro Nationals can sometimes qualify two seconds faster than the 250 class. There’s so much more power, so much. But truly, the 450, I feel like I can go to another level. And I mean, we won’t know till I race. But personally, myself and my team, they could see it.”

Craig released from Star Racing Yamaha team

Now linked to World Supercross with Quad Lock Honda.

Christian Craig has revealed that he’s received a release from the Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing team just one year into a two-year contract, the former 250SX West champion now linked to Quad Lock Honda for the upcoming World Supercross Championship.

After two challenging seasons with Rockstar Energy Husqvarna, Craig had made the switch back to his former team – where he collected his Supercross title in 2022 – for both 2025 and 2026 to contest 450SX.

A torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and meniscus at the final SMX Playoff last year sidelined the 34-year-old for the opening Monster Energy Supercross rounds of this year, later posting a season-high result of 11th in both Denver and Salt Lake City.

“Just wanted to give everyone an update on what I am doing,” Craig announced. “I have asked and have been granted an early release from my two-year contract with Star Racing Yamaha. I’ve had a lot of great memories riding blue, including winning a 250SX championship together, and thanks to everyone for the support. I will update you on my future soon.”

It’s now anticipated that Craig will join Joey Savatgy at Quad Lock Honda for the world championship season in SX1 after the official WSX series website posted him as part of the 2025 team roster late last week, before removing the rider lists altogether.

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Grand Prix Racing on a Ski Resort

The 2025 Big Bear Grand Prix, presented by O’Neal, was a huge success. Thanks to Aaron Cooke, owner of the Swapmoto Race Series, Justin Herrmann, the track builder, and the entire Bear Mountain Resort staff, this event was wildly unique and successful. MXA’s Josh Fout is a part of the Bear Mountain staff, and he also played a key role in the success of this first-year event.

The rare glimpse toward 2026 with Lawrence and Deegan

motoonline.com

Competition Post: Kane Taylor

On display during Budds Creek championship press conference.

In a teaser of what’s likely to come, the Pro Motocross champions press conference following the Budds Creek National this past weekend saw Jett Lawrence and Haiden Deegan seated alongside each other and pressed on their pending 450MX rivalry that could eventuate in 2026 – offering a rare glimpse into what we may become accustomed to from next year and beyond.

The comparison between the pair gained serious momentum throughout this year’s outdoors, particularly because both Deegan (Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing) and Lawrence (Honda HRC Progressive) had disposed of their respective 250MX and 450MX competition early in the piece, causing attention to shift as to when these two would meet in one year’s time.

Not only was this a fan, media, and average pundit thing, but it also reached both riders, too, with sneaky jabs taken at each other throughout the season – which was especially the case on social media. Taunts were rife as they continued to show up on weekends and capture race win after race win, trophy after trophy, and eventually, the number one plates in each division.

Then, as if pouring fuel on a fire, Deegan was officially announced to the 450MX division as part of a multi-year deal with the Star Racing organization commencing for Pro Motocross in 2026, adding substance to a conversation that was still relatively speculative up until that point.

Image: Octopi Media.

As for the riders, there hasn’t been a great deal of interaction between the two – it’s almost been a more indirect thing – with the Deegans making a big deal about the Lawrences’ ‘blocking’ them from racing last year’s AUSX Open event in Australia, or the commotion between Hunter Lawrence (Honda HRC Progressive) and Deegan when they were dicing for the 250MX outdoor title in 2023.

Put simply, all signs point to the two not having a type of fondness for one another – and they certainly have polar opposite approaches when it comes to how they conduct themselves and their racing. The Lawrence camp are quiet achievers – they let the riding do the talking, largely avoiding the need to engage in drama even when they are poked and prodded by their competition.

The Deegans, on the other hand, appear to thrive on controversy. They love the commentary that comes in the aftermath – even if it is negative – because that gives them fuel to say ‘we proved you all wrong’ when they make the walk up to the podium. We’ve seen that time and time again with Haiden and his competition, with his list of rivalries more than you could count on one hand by now. And it’s good for the brand. Usually.

It’s a strategy that has worked so far in the feeder 250 category, and worked really, really well to say the least. It’s had a significant impact on the likes of Levi Kitchen (Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki), Jo Shimoda (Honda HRC Progressive), and Julien Beaumer (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) throughout their championship duels with Deegan, where he’s so often enjoyed the upper hand when it counts.

Image: Octopi Media.

It is also an approach, however, that has many people wondering whether it will work in the premier class, where Deegan will meet an entire top 10 of previous 250 champions, as well as multi-time 450 title holders. It’s a different ball game, and we sit here with the question of how will he fare against Jett Lawrence? But that assumes that he can get through multi-time 450 champions Chase Sexton (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) and Eli Tomac (Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing), which is far from a certainty.

Nevertheless, both Jett and Haiden’s futures did finally collide at Budds Creek, with the two directly commenting elaborately on each other for really the first time in their young careers.

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it,” commented Lawrence when questioned on Deegan’s arrival. “I’m always up for new challenges. I feel like when I get challenged, when someone comes in that is really good, I feel like I ride better – and it creates new motivation for me. No one wants to lose in this sport, so whenever I do lose, I get pretty pissed.

“I’m looking forward to it – obviously the fans want to create a rivalry – we are the closest in age, I would say, outside of the other competitors, so yeah, people seem to be trying to create the RC [Ricky Carmichael] and James Stewart kind of thing, which is cool. The sport needs a rivalry, and I think it’ll be good for the sport.”

Deegan added directly afterwards: “I’m excited, although I have a little bit of work to do, obviously. Those guys are pretty gnarly in the 450 class, so all I can do is work hard and eventually be running up there with the boys, but as of now, I have a lot of work to do – or whether it is a lot or just putting my days in, but we’ll get there.”

An interesting note is that neither mentioned the other by name, which likely points to the underlying animosity that is swirling beneath the surface of their otherwise nice and respectful answers. Neither congratulated the other on their title or overall season, either, which suggests that this interaction was a forced process (hats off to whoever seated them together), prompted only by the unavoidable circumstances of the question and proximity.

There isn’t any love lost here, by all indications, which is interesting because they’ve only ever really met on the one occasion that Hunter and Haiden had a quasi-rivalry outdoors in 2023. What it means is that it undoubtedly sets us up for a wild decade of competition, considering both Jett and Deegan are just getting started in their careers.

I anticipate that when the two futures do collide, fireworks in one way or another won’t be all that far off between the two camps. Add in the fact that Brian Deegan is an expert at playing the antagonist – as he did in Freestyle Motocross with Travis Pastrana in the early 2000s – and all the ingredients are there for… entertainment, to say the very least.

As mentioned, a lot of this presupposes that Haiden will clear Chase, Hunter, Eli, and more to be able to reach Jett on a regular basis, which again, is no sure thing and something that will be an intriguing piece to follow in its own right.

2025 ISDE Results: Decisive Day 2 for Team Italy in Bergamo

Results from all classes at the 2025 FIM International Six Days Enduro (ISDE) in Italy where the home nation’s World Trophy team move ahead of France at the top of the leaderboard – USA Women hold 16-minutes lead already.

Day two at the 2025 International Six Days Enduro saw riders and teams back on the same tests and in sunny conditions.

The story of the day is Team Italy’s jump ahead of France on the World Trophy leaderboard. It could be the wet conditions suited the French on day one yesterday, as it did last year in Galicia, but with the sun out the Italians and at least one Spaniard were bossing it.

That Spaniard, Josep Garcia, went fastest overall in every test today, stamping his authority on the individual result (and the sport) but he was kept honest by Andrea Verona who finished just 11.65 seconds adrift.

 

Italy maintain their advantage in the Junior World Trophy but the Aussies are flying and coming for them. Led by Kyron Bacon, who pulled third scratch today, team Oz close into just half a minute behind the Italian boys.

Meanwhile in the Women’s World Trophy, Team USA are sailing away with it. More than 16 minutes advantage is slightly unreal, even by their standards in recent ISDEs.

World Trophy

As early as test two, team Italy’s men had taken advantage of the drier conditions and earlier start times to jump into the lead. France had a 34 seconds lead at the end of the wet day one but the Italians swung it right back in the sunshine today and look comfortable out front with a near two-minute advantage.

All three leading teams have riders vying for top 10 scratch times in the tests, with Sweden joining France and Italy in that podium fight. But the contest is being won or lost here by the fourth team member and all three have been looking in the rear-view mirror for the collective time tally. It’s one reason why ISDE is so fascinating.

Sweden lost ground after a duff third test result from Mikael Persson – the Triumph Racing rider went from third scratch to 12th after a mistake. But the team is dogged and clawed back by the end of lap two to close in to just over half a minute between France second and Sweden third.

Behind the top three WT teams it’s incredibly close. Spain, USA and Australia are see-sawing back and forth with the Aussies nicking it for fourth today, 10 seconds ahead of USA.

Spain are benefitting from Garcia at one end of the time sheets but losing out with Julio Pando’s time at the other. They are 20 seconds back in sixth and proving the point about team strength.

Garcia wins every test

Typically Josep Garcia – who won day one outright but lost a chunk of time with a crash in the final test – started day two in determined mood. Determined to get his individual advantage back to a decent gap, he began the day with a test time no-one else could match and went on to win every test outright.

Andrea Verona was back on song though and we can see a familiar pattern emerging here yet again at the ISDE: Garcia leads, Verona chases. The pair were separated by 11 seconds scratch today.

Youngsters in the fight

It was a strong day individually for a number of young riders including Morgan Lesiardo, Kyron Bacon and Grant Davis. Two of these riders have good Italian enduro experience, naturally Lesiardo who is Italian, and Kyron Bacon who is racing for an Italian Kawasaki team this year.

Davis has never been here before and clocked in sixth fastest overall impressively finishing fastest American.

Bacon looked to have impressed even himself having ripped a fine third scratch result today behind Verona and Garcia.

Also shoutout to Lukas Neurauter bagging top three results on the long, third enduro test for two days on the bounce.

Aussie Juniors keep Italy honest

ISDE is a team sport and Bacon surely kept his Australian Junior team in the hunt for the Junior World Trophy with his times today. All three Italian and Australian Junior riders are inside the top 10 in class and it shows as Italy continue to lead but only by just over half a minute.

France remain third, two minutes adrift with USA fourth and Spain fifth.

Wonder Women

It’s normal for us to write that team USA Women are leading but, jeez, not normally by this much this early. 16-plus minutes after two days means they can control it from here with France second ahead of the Australia girls today, by half a minute.

The individual battle between Brandy Richards, Australian Daniell Macdonald and Korie Steede for the scratch win is worth keeping an eye on.

Club class

The situation is unchanged in the contest for Club Trophy honours with the official Italian club team doubling their advantage to 3:42. But AMA Club Team Rabaconda kept on today and take over second place, relegating BBM Italian old guys third and followed by four USA club teams dominating the top 10 in class.

Tom Vialle Budds Creek comments

"Hey guys, I've seen some stupid shit online since Budds Creek and just want to clear it up. I haven't quit or anything like that. Like everyone knows, I'm not the only rider in this situation. We have been dealing with broken/fading shocks all summer. The team and I can see in the data that the shock isn't working properly and something happened early in the moto.

"It's been really tough for me the last couple races with the shock, but I still wanted to keep racing and giving it my all like I always have my whole career. But, after the shock broke once again in moto one at Budds Creek, I decided not to race the second moto for my own safety. I'm sure everyone gets that.

"KTM and the team are working on it, and I'm confident we'll be good to go for SMX. See you guys there."