What We Noticed: Glendale
February 05, 2025
Image from Feld Motor Sports, Inc.
Glendale… last 250W race for a while and also the first Triple Crown… Here’s What We Noticed.
- NOOOO JETT
Ugh…. Horrible news on Monday afternoon. Jett obviously hurt his knee in that last race and now it appears he will be out for the remainder of the series. Jett seemed so invincible after his debut 450MX, SMX, and SX season. Then came the thumb injury last summer, and now he’s out again: that’s two championships he couldn’t defend due to injury.
What’s even worse is the toll on the record books… Jett has been super vocal about wanting to challenge McGrath’s 72 Supercross wins and he was off to a great start last year. However, missing 1 season definitely dampens his total win count; we’re assuming he could have gotten at least 7 wins this season right? Definitely too hard to predict, but now we will never know.
Hope he heals up soon and we see him for Pro Motocross Round 1.
- No Reigning Champ
With Jett out for the season, all of a sudden the door is wide open: it’s anyones championship to take! Well, not anyone; I’m predicting Sexton, Tomac, and Webb (in no particular order) as the main favorites, with Roczen a distant 4th. It’ll be interesting to see which of these riders step and become the guy to beat. So far Tomac has been fastest, but Sexton the most consistent. We still haven’t seen Webb at his best, but expect him to improve now that we’re moving east.
In my opinion, this favors Sexton the most: he always seems to shine when Jett is not in the picture. For some reason, I feel like Tomac was feeding off the task of beating Jett, and now with Jett gone, I worry that he will have more pressure on him and we will see some his stereotypical weird rides. As for Webb: I don’t think he phased by anything; Jett being gone doesn’t make a difference other than it makes it harder to beat Sexton? Just my predictions…
- Jumps!
This is the coolest track I’ve ever seen in person. Most of the sections had their challenges:
- wall jump before the finish that was a massive launch
- quad out of the long rhythm after the finish that couldn’t be done unless the triple before was timed perfectly
- inside vs. outside of the sand
- tricky 3-3-2 before the whoops that most riders were struggling to do consistently
- inside vs outside before the whoops: quad from the outside or not?
- two different options in the middle rhythm, with one providing a MASSIVE triple out
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Wall Jumps
On the opposite side of how awesome it was to watch these guys launch the walls, were the riders and mechanics feeling peeved about it. Lot’s of damage to bikes were done from landing on the hard flat surface after launching the walls. In particular, the wall before the finish was damaging. Roczen mentioned how it hurt his wrists and was grueling to do every lap. The weird part was that the track originally had a small roller in front of the Finish Line that riders could use as a landing when launching the wall. However, the track crew removed it (assumably to stop riders from jumping? They still jumped regardless).We asked Roczen about it in the press conference afterwards, and he said he would have preferred that they kept it in. Overall, kudos to the track crew for building such an awesome track, but some minor room for improvement?
- What If?
What if for Beaumer, Tomac, and Davies? All riders leave Glendale feeling like they should have won it right? Tomac got the last Race 3 win after incredible charges in Races 1 and 2, Davies got Race 1 and 2 wins but a Race 3 crash, and Beaumer got 2 holeshots and 2 first lap crashes. The “what if” question has been a pattern for Eli this season… he probably could have / should have won every race (maybe not A2)?
- AZ Vibin
Dry desert sun and cool stadiums… Arizona is a perfect stop for Supercross! State Farm Stadium in Glendale is one of the best venues on the circuit with its massive floor. However, I wish they could go back to Chase Field in downtown Phoenix; so many epic races there and a rad location. My dream is having a back-to-back weekend with races in both venues!
