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A big topic of discussion since the SuperMotocross Playoffs was announced in late 2022, has been about the length of the 450 schedule. It’s 31 races, with a total of maybe five weeks, give or take, off from January to September.
It’s a grind. During those weeks off, these guys aren’t taking a break, and if they are they aren’t going on a vacation to Cabo. They’re adjusting their training schedules to take maybe a couple days off, or taking a lighter approach to training, either way they are all in all season long.
On the other hand, the SMX Playoffs have provided A LOT of money for the top dogs in the sport. If we lose rounds, does that mean less of a payout?
During the post race press conference after Charlotte on Saturday, Jett Lawrence, Eli Tomac, and Chase Sexton each gave their opinion on whether or not the schedule is too long. Our guy Gypsy Tales Jase was the one who initiated the question.
Jett Lawrence
“For people like me and Eli, guys who’ve had injuries, it’s not too bad because we’ve had that break, we’ve had that time off, where Chase has done every single round. I think if we mainly cut the rounds down it would make things safer for the other riders too. Even in Supercross, the 17 rounds there are great, it’s always been like that, but we don’t need 17 rounds. If they cut it to 15 or 14 it makes it a lot more exciting because everything’s closer. You have to do things now. The 250s are exciting because you have to execute every round. Where in 450s you can have a bad race and still have a chance to win it. Hopefully in the future they might cut a lot more races to make things more exciting for athletes too. They might stick around more you know, because they’re not wear and tearing their body throughout the whole year, then have such a short off season, and trying to get going again.”
Chase Sexton
“After you put so much emphasis on Supercross and Motocross combined, it’s hard to rebuild that for these three races. At the end of the day it’s going to take the top seven, eight, or nine riders to come together and say that we aren’t racing that much. At the end of the day you want the sport to grow, so I see both sides. But, as a racer you don’t want to see guys getting injured that you want to race, you want them there for the whole season. It’s cool that everyone comes back for these last three races, but at the end of the day you want them there for both seasons in general. Yeah, I think there needs to be less race, but we’ve got to have a voice a little bit too. At the end of the day they kind of control what the narrative is and we don’t really get much say.”
Eli Tomac
“It’s hard to say what the magic number is. When you go year, after year, after year, the accumulation becomes the problem. How many years can you really go? I don’t have an answer for you.”
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If Eli Tomac, a man who is one of the greatest riders ever to swing a leg over a bike, doesn’t have an answer for how many races belong on the calendar…then I have no business throwing a number out either. However, this is my opinionated column, so let’s dive into it.
The top guys seem frustrated with how long the series is, so maybe we can do 14 Supercross races and ten Pro Motocross Nationals? That would cut down the races by seven for a total of 24 on the schedule. Plus the three playoff rounds would put us at 27. Would that be better? I think so, but what would that do for the payout purse? What city would lose their SX and which National gets cut? I have my opinions on that, but for hypothetical reasons we won’t get into that today.
I think anything less than ten Pro Motocross races would be a travesty. You’d have to have ten at least and I’m cool with the SX calendar going down to 14. We could insert breaks into the schedule to allow for riders to heal up and rest.
What are your thoughts on this? The MLB season is 162 games, the NBA has an 82 game season, the NFL has 18 weeks, but only 17 games for each team, the NHL has 82 games, F1 typically has 19-25 races, MotoGP has 22 races, MXGP has 20 races, and WSX has four rounds in three locations. Okay, that last one was kind of a low blow, but still. Each sport offers different strains on an athlete. Each stick and ball sport offers a longer off-season. As it is right now, the riders in our sport get basically three months off between the end of the playoffs to Anaheim 1.
Sure, now they are compensated for it now with plenty of money. The top guys are multi millionaires, so in no way do I feel sorry for them. I’m just laying out the facts. I think maybe we can relook at the schedule as a whole and trim accordingly. The only thing that I don’t want to see is the money lower because of that trimming.
Also, can we get the media guys a cut of some of this money? Thanks.
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