Main image by Brandon Croney

Welcome to Racerhead and welcome to the next-to-last round of the 2026 AMA Pro Motocross Championship. We're at Budds Creek Motocross Park in Maryland for the penultimate round of the series, and both titles are still up for grabs. Jett Lawrence now has the red plates and a ten-point lead over big brother Hunter after a crazy second moto at Unadilla, in which #96 went down at the top of Screw-U and tumbled to the bottom of the steepest hill on the circuit. It bent his bars badly and shook Hunter up enough to pull off, leaving him with a 1-DNF score, not to mention the need for a new pit board. His 12-point lead disappeared, and now he has to scramble to get back out front. But he does control his own destiny: 1-1 scores at the last two rounds and he wins the title. As for Jett, he just needs to beat Hunter once, and then 2-2-2s would still earn him the title.

And check out this stat from our guy Mitch Kendra: this was only Hunter's first overall finish outside the top five and just his second moto finish outside of the top five!

In the 250 Class, a crazy start in the second moto almost left Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki's Levi Kitchen with his own 1-DNF, but he somehow didn't go down in that first-turn melee and then gutted out a 1-6 finish instead—and it should have been 1-5, but the very impressive Brodie Connolly of New Zealand got him back at the last moment. If Levi loses this title by a point—and he's only a point ahead right now—Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing's Cole Davies will owe it to his fellow Kiwi!

Davies was the overall winner with 2-1 finishes, and the points are practically a dead heat at 334-333. Julien Beaumer is third and still in it, though he was in that same crazy first-turn deal with Kitchen and only got back up to 13th. Beaumer has 290 points (and he and the Red Bull KTM announced an extension through the 2027 SMX season and beyond). As for that Connolly kid, people forget a #788 Brodie Connolly was battling inside the top ten in the first 250 moto at Unadilla one year ago.

Turning to Budds Creek, we will have two and a half hours live on NBC tomorrow, which means the second motos for both 250 and 450, as well as WMX, who are racing their first moto here shortly. It rained here heavily last night, and Jason Baker and his Dream Traxx crew worked overtime to get things drained and back in shape for today's press day (though amateur practice was canceled). The weather is 50/50 for tomorrow, which is definitely the talk of the paddock today. There are also a lot of questions around Team USA, as always. We may have a team next week, and it may not be who you're expecting. Stay tuned!

• Motocross, WMX

  • SMX Friday Live Presented by Honda 

    Live

    August 21 - 1:30 PM

    

  • Race Day Live (Qualifying) 

    Live

    August 22 - 10:00 AM

    

  • August 22 - 1:00 PM

    

  • August 22 - 1:00 PM

    

  • August 22 - 3:30 PM

    

Two rounds left in Pro Motocross before we go playoff racing. The title chases are all over the place and very hard to get a grip on from week to week. To add to the mix, we are very likely to have inclement weather as a storyline come Saturday afternoon. What's the setup for Budds? Glad you asked.

In the 250 Class, it feels like Levi Kitchen is clinging to this lead for dear life. His first-lap positioning has been a very difficult trend to overcome. He has done a brilliant job of damage mitigation, but starting 12th is not a winning recipe unless you're a dominant force in the class. It puts him in a situation where he needs to ride his heart out every single time. He's fighting the tide, and eventually, that becomes hard to sustain. Cole Davies, on the other hand, is putting himself in winning positions. Sure, he has had his share of troubles, too, but he has made life easier on himself a majority of the time. His starts are beyond reproach now, and that's easing the complications that can come in traffic. It's easy to say, "but Kitchen is still winning!" but I would venture a guess that if you inserted the stats into an algorithm and told it to predict the outcomes over time, Davies would have a clear advantage. That's really what I'm looking at. Budds Creek favors good starts greatly, with passing coming at a premium. If Davies gets up front and Kitchen is 10th, I don't like the chances of green finishing ahead of blue. If I had one piece of advice for Kitch, it would be to do whatever it takes to get to the front on the first lap. Whatever it takes. The championship likely rides on it.

In the 450 Class, the tables have flipped entirely. Hunter's second moto DNF gives brother Jett a 10-point lead with four motos to go. Hunter must now be the aggressor, and Jett is in management mode. Jett can't lay back, though, as he will need to beat Hunter at some point to keep the math in check. Jett has the advantage of being choosy, but it's still not a guarantee he brings this home. Hunter has been great at both Budds and Ironman, and it's not impossible for him to win four in a row. It's going to come down to a one-on-one battle in a couple of these motos, and they are going to have to sort it out family style. Deegs should be good at Budds, but I'm not sure if he can hang for the full 35 minutes yet.

The variables here could be a muddy racetrack on Saturday and the mistakes that have been more prevalent in 2026 than ever before. One crash by either of the brothers can change the dynamic in an instant in either direction. Unadilla changed everything. Does Budds Creek bring another flip?

It has now been more than one full calendar year and one full Pro Motocross season since a last name other than Lawrence appeared at the top of the 450 results, as the brothers Jett and Hunter now have a combined win streak of 13 races that goes back to July 19, 2025, when Chase Sexton (then on a Red Bull KTM) won the Washougal National.

In the last three rounds of the FIM Motocross World Championship—Czechia, Belgium, Sweden—Honda HRC Petronas's Jeffrey Herlings has gone 1-1-1, winning Saturday's qualifying race and Sunday's two motos all three times. That's worth 60 championship points each time. Since previous points leader Lucas Coenen was injured at the British GP, after going 1-1-1 himself three times in the first 11 rounds, Herlings has gone from a 68-point deficit to a lead of 119 points over Kawasaki's Romain Febvre, the defending MXGP World Champion. With MXGP in sandy Arnhem, Holland, this week, Herlings will be right at home. Don't be surprised if he makes it four 1-1-1s in a row!

• MXGP

  • August 22 - 6:00 AM

    

  • August 22 - 7:35 AM

    

  • August 22 - 8:10 AM

    

  • August 22 - 8:50 AM

    

  • August 22 - 10:25 AM

    

  • MXGP Qualifying Race 

    Live

    August 22 - 11:15 AM

    

  • August 23 - 3:35 AM

    

  • August 23 - 5:20 AM

    

  • August 23 - 7:00 AM

    

  • August 23 - 8:00 AM

    

  • August 23 - 10:00 AM

    

  • August 23 - 10:00 AM

    

  • August 23 - 11:00 AM

    

  • August 23 - 11:00 AM

    

Walking up through the paddock here at Budds Creek Motocross Park, you can usually hear the sounds of the amateur day practice echoing through the trees and bouncing off the famous Henry Hill. As you continue through, you can see the tire burn marks imprinted into the concrete in front of the Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing tent from Haiden Deegan's two 250 Class AMA Pro Motocross Championship titles in 2024 and 2025. As you breathe in the air, you still get a faint smell of the stale championship champagne from those two years prior burning your nostrils. You take a look around and absorb the sun shining and casting shadows through the trees onto the track. This is Budds Creek, baby!

While this year, 2026, we won't crown a 250 champion as we have in years past. This year, BOTH championships will likely be wrapped up at the final round next week at Ironman (barring something completely unusual happening, that is).

A "thrilla at 'Dilla" last week was certainly what we got to witness firsthand. We were handed all that we could handle and more. First, the wild 250 Moto 2 start saw Levi Kitchen, Julien Beaumer, Deacon Denno, and Landen Gordon all coming together in the first corner, shooting off the track and having to turn around just to get back on the race course. (Shoutout to Ryder Yeckley for dodging, dipping, ducking, diving, and dodging those 250 riders and escaping the mayhem without a scratch!). Then, Hunter's Moto 2 mishap and DNF ultimately led to a 25-point swing in the younger brother Jett Lawrence's favor.

After the dust settled in New Berlin, New York, Jett now leads the 450 Class point standings over Hunter, and Levi Kitchen sits just one point up on the Kiwi, Cole Davies!

The family affair between the Lawrence brothers is still going strong. Ten points might not sound like a huge gap, but when there isn't much racing left, every mistake, every position now has tremendous meaning while chasing a championship. Jett has experience in this situation and knows how to manage a championship when the pressure is on. He does not need to win out, but he must keep Hunter in striking distance, while Hunter needs to find an opening, make his way to the front of the pack, stay there, and avoid costly mistakes. This 450 championship can very much come down to a last moto battle at Ironman for all the marbles!

As for the 250 class, it seems we are in a down-to-the-wire treat here as well. Again, just one single point sits between Kitchen and Davies. On the podium after Unadilla, it was brought to Levi's attention that he was sitting one point up heading into Budds Creek, and he simply said, "Well, I guess it's time to sack up!" Will this 250 championship be Kitchen's to lose? Or will Davies add a 2026 Pro Motocross championship trophy to sit alongside his 2026 250SX East Division Monster Energy AMA Supercross trophy?

Two rounds left. Four motos total. Ten points in the 450 class title. And just one single point in the 250 class. That's all that's separating four different riders from two different championships. Tomorrow the gate will drop on round ten out of 11 here in Mechanicsville, Maryland, and another chapter in this wild 2026 season will be written in the history books. When the dust settles Saturday evening over Henry Hill and Big Gulp, will we have a new points leader in each class?

Let's drop the gate at Budds Creek!

Check out some Deegan pics from those Deegan title celebrations in 2024 and 2025...

We put out our Depth Chart feature this week on the greatest Kawasaki factory riders of all time to complement the magazine feature where we ranked the top ten. Forty-nine riders have ridden for factory Kawasaki in their history, and this is on the heels of the Honda one we did. The top of Kawasaki (ET, RV, Stew, Wardy, RC, Emig) is absolutely stacked like Honda's (Jett, RJ, MC, RC, Stanton), but what I found funny was after the top ten, there was one rider with a title (Brad Lackey), whereas with Honda, there were another TEN with titles! Now that's a deep depth chart!

Of course, as soon as you put something out like a list, you're going to get arguments. I've been fending off the people on social media who think Ryan Villopoto should be #1 over Jeff Ward; it's just recency bias in my mind. Also, if we go off "stats," then it's actually James Stewart that is the winningest Kawasaki rider of all time. There's more to it than stats, people; Villopoto is an icon of the sport, but in talking to people and looking at the whole picture, it's Jeff Ward that's #1—he had a 13-year career with Kawasaki, and he won every title out there. He was the only non-Honda rider to win 450SX in a 14-year stretch, he won on every size bike, and he was amazing at the MXDN's.

And because the rules are that we are just counting a rider's time at that factory team, Wardy has one more title and three more wins than RV did at Kawasaki (remember, we don't count RV's time at PC Kawasaki). So yes, Wardy has two 450SX titles to four for RV, but "stats" also say Wardy was better. IDK man, Mitch Payton said Wardy, Emig said Wardy, Weege said Wardy, and so did DC. I won't have this Jeff Ward slander, people!

As Matthes mentioned, this week we posted his "Death Chart: Kawasaki," the second installment of his series in which he ranks each brand's factory riders over the years. And just like his first feature, which was about American Honda's riders over the years, Matthes didn't really know what to make of "Bad" Brad Lackey, the first American motocross legend who spent almost his entire career racing in Europe. Lackey did win the first AMA Pro Motocross Championship in 1972 aboard a Kawasaki, then moved to Europe to begin his quest to win the 500cc World Championship title. "He was a little before my time," admitted Steve. He was also confused by some of Lackey's '72 season, in which he started out on a CZ while Kawasaki was preparing its prototype motocross bikes, so he asked for some help.

In 1972, Brad Lackey was the hottest rider on the West Coast. The NorCal prospect rode for CZ but was courted by Kawasaki to race their first motocross bike. He did not race the first two rounds of the 1972 Pro Motocross Series because they were on the East Coast and the bike wasn't ready. He finally lined up for the third round, which was at the Cal-Expo in Sacramento, and won. He then won again the following week at Saddleback, and two more for good measure.

But here's the thing: The prototype Kawasaki may or may not have been ready. For local races (and that includes Hangtown, which wasn't a national), he signed up as riding a CLR (Cranke/Lackey Racing), which was really a CZ. By mid-summer, the Kawasaki was humming, and so was Brad. He won the first four outdoor nationals he ever entered, which is still the all-time best beginning to a professional career.

However, in the Vault, the last ten rounds of the 500cc series in 1972 and '73 were actually Trans-AMA races that included Europeans. The AMA counted them as nationals too, but not the Europeans. The "top American" got the 500 National win, and seven straight times it was Brad Lackey. Technically, they were not really wins.

As for his other '73 scores, Kawasaki allowed him to race in Europe in the 500 Grand Prix events, which was always his goal. He did a few nationals on off-weekends, but that's all. Everything from September '73 to December were Trans-AMA races. In 1974, he switched to Husqvarna and continued to occasionally go back and forth between GPs and outdoor nationals.

In case you're wondering, Lackey finished 13th overall in the 500 GPs in '73, with a best-moto finish of fifth place at the Luxembourg round. Ten years later, racing for Suzuki, he would finally become the first American to win a world title, and he clinched that historic title at that same track in Luxembourg, called Ettelbruck.

Yamaha had all the media out at ClubMX this week for the launch of the all-new 2027 YZ250F. ClubMX also officially opened its new gym that Weege toured (which you can see in his latest Wednesday Weege Show). For some of the media who had never visited ClubMX, Mike Bonacci showed them the property and all that encompasses it. Trust me, there's a lot! On Wednesday, it was our chance to ride the YZ250F, but you will have to wait until the embargo lifts on Wednesday at 9 a.m. Pacific/ to see what we thought. I grabbed one of my bigger test riders, Eddie Laret, who is 220 pounds, and also had Ben Graves, at 160 pounds (ClubMX operating nanager), give his feedback on the bike as well. The video is lengthy, but there is a lot of info that comes along with a new bike, so we wanted to make sure to cover all the bases on this one.

It was also cool to see Daniel Blair ride again along with ClubMX team riders Hunter Yoder, Ryder Malinoski, Max Vohland, Jesson Turner, and even Chad Reed. Yes, Chad is a little thicker these days, but he even went out and shredded on the new YZ250F. Yes, he still rips! Lachlan Turner took time out of her training to spin some laps, but the fish that got away was our own "Weege." Yes, that guy who talks on Saturday almost came out to ride. I thought we had him on Tuesday evening, but when I sent the motivational text Wednesday morning, I got shut down. But, he had a good reason, so I will let him slide on this go-around. Nothing would make me happier than to have a Jason Weigandt opinion on a bike intro. I mean, he could have tested the new 2027 YZ250F and had that knowledge of what the bike's strengths and weaknesses were for next year when the ClubMX or Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing guys were dealing with track conditions. Imagine Weege downloading Stew on what the bLU cRU machine is all about during a mid-race call. AMAZING!

Thanks to Yamaha and ClubMX for having us out, and yes, it's officially the 2027 testing season. Holy crap!

Ryder Yeckley is a high school student from the Pittsburgh area who has been contributing to Racer X for about a year now. He was on assignment at Unadilla and had a front-row seat—literally—to that first-turn mayhem in the second 250 moto, as Brandon Croney mentioned. Here's what he posted about what turned out to be a near miss:

It was a busy week of racing around the dirt bike world. Here's a shortcut to see the big winners, according to the win ads in cyclenews.com.

"Report: College Football Teams Looking To Sign NFL Players Who Get Cut"—Yahoo Sports

“The Browns’ QB competition is messier and more fascinating than anyone expected it to be”—Cleveland.Com

"Arizona teen charged for ‘relentlessly’ targeting ex-girlfriend with dodgeballs during gym class"—NY Post

"Woman Passes Away, Is Miraculously Brought Back To Life, And Then Receives A Parking Ticket"—World Manual

"Heavy Metal Crowd Left ‘Crying And Vomiting’ After Fan Poops In Mosh Pit"

Sorry Afred..."Brewers tie largest shutout in modern era, blank Mariners 22-0"—ESPN
"Julio Rodriguez's inexcusable gaffe in center field is perfect microcosm of Mariners 22-0 loss to Brewers"—Outkick

Jesson Turner got 10 license penalty points for going outside the Unadilla markers 10 times, and so he went to the line last for the second moto as he had passed the threshold for the penalty.

In the case of Deegan he went out of the markers but did not gain an advantage, so he got a license penalty, not a position docked. Here is our full update on the penalties.

You may not know the name Alex Lardwood, who finished 16-10 for 13th overall at Unadilla in his first ever Pro Motocross race, but you probably saw his very strange crash from about a year ago. Watch it below!