What We Noticed: Daytona
March 05, 2025
Image from Feld Motor Sports, Inc.
DAYTONA! Always an epic venue; here’s What We Noticed:
- Sexton Struggles…
Two weeks ago we had this title with a question mark… last week no question mark… this week? Ugh…. what’s going on with Chase Sexton? This is now 4 WEEKS in a row of costly mistakes and he now finds himself 10 points down from Webb. Super costly mistakes in a championship against a rider he can’t lose these points to.
Luckily, Sexton still seems to be the fastest guy right? It was weird seeing him fade back at the end but I’m not reading too much into it: he was either tired or feeling pain or both… that heat race crash was gnarly and the track was difficult. He’ll be better in Indy, but I’m losing confidence that he can be consistent enough to win this championship. Only Sexton knows; he still has the speed to control the outcome of this championship.
- Roczen In It?
Amazing, impressive ride for Kenny to get his first Daytona win! With a win out of the way, the next question is: can he compete for this title? I think so… if he didn’t tangle with a lapper in Tampa he would be leading this title. Webb is tough to beat no doubt, but Roczen has the speed to beat him. The biggest question: can he do it consistently enough to catch up to Webb in the points? Roczen’s weakness has been late race fades allowing Webb to catch him. It almost happened again in Daytona, but he was able to fend him off. Is that a sign of things to come?
- Pro Circuit Pain
Wow. I can’t believe the bad luck for Pro Circuit… it seems to get worse with every passing year. Let’s recap:
- Kitchen get sick and moves East, losing a rider at A1.
- Masterpool gets pulled from East to West, losing out on a race at A1.
- Masterpool breaks fingers at SD
- Marchbanks injures shoulder and misses A2
- Drew Adams breaks collarbone at Glendale
- McAdoo crashes out in Detroit
- McAdoo pulls out of Daytona and will miss rest of SX
- Kitchen breaks back at Daytona and will presumably miss rest of SX
- 250E Title Hopefuls
With Kitchen out, it really comes down to 3 guys now: Anstie, Hampshire, and Vialle. What started as a super stacked field has quickly suffered; sucks to see. Vialle seems to be struggling a bit to start the year as well; I definitely was expecting more from him in Daytona after being so dominant there last year. He still has lots of racing to turn things around, but Anstie and Hampshire are looking like the top 2 currently.
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Watching from Home
This was our first SX race we haven’t been to in-person since 2023. It sucked, but luckily we have a great TV package to watch it all live from home! RDL seems to have improved, and the live race broadcast seemed to cover most action. We missed being trackside on Press Day (shooting some vids and pics for Instagram), missed interviewing riders, and missed the press conference, but fortunate to still cover the action from home. Unfortunately we will also miss the next two rounds (will cover from home again), but will resume attending the remaining 7 rounds starting in Seattle!
