2024 Daytona Supercross Photo Gallery

2024 Daytona Supercross Recap

Some moments of flash but a mostly routine day of racing for Round 8 of the 2024 Monster Energy Supercross season on Saturday at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, FL.

In a track that looked reminiscent of those once created on Intellivision, prior rains created soft conditions without turning this round into a mudder while the verbal clickbait coming from the announcer's booth seemed to stir up manufactured drama.

At the start of the 450 class, Jett Lawrence's pit crew for some reason kept a tire warmer on the rear tire until the very last minute. As the seconds ticked down to gatedrop the warmer was ripped and pulled off but for those watching from home you'd think the Championship chase got upended. "Oh no, what is happening! This is the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of sports! He's gonna die!"

It didn't affect Lawrence and he won. Quite handily.

That then produced commentary on how he is the best rider ever because he was calm, cool and collected despite the mass casualty incident going on behind him at the start.

On to what matters. Chase Sexton grabbed the Holeshot with Eli Tomac in tow and Lawrence in third. This lasted for about eight minutes until Lawrence made a pass on Tomac in the rhythm section and seconds later (maybe a bit more than what was left on the 30 second board when the Championship almost got upended at the start) he passed Sexton. That was it. Race over.

Tomac's dirt bike spit out plumes of white smoke from a burned clutch after about 10 minutes which had no ill effect on his race craft as he eventually passed Sexton for second with two laps remaining. Tomac owns Daytona but was unable to catch Lawrence who got his first Daytona 450 class win.

"I felt good all day. We came here for business, I'm happy to come out here with a win, hoping we can click more (wins) off," Lawrence said. "I improved on my mistakes last weekend so I'm happy about that."

Tomac finished second for the second straight week and fourth time this year. The second winningest rider in Supercross history has yet to cross the checkers first this year, but finally appears comfortable and healed from an Achilles tear that ended his Championship run in the penultimate race last year.

"I didn't look over at my pit board. I didn't see anything I didn't feel anything. The motorcycle was fine," Tomac said in regards to the clutch issue. "Frustrated I didn't do the quad. (It) cost me, got to take more risks next time."

Elsewhere, Cooper Webb worked his way from seventh to fourth to remain in the title chase and Ken Roczen stuck it out in fifth. Lawrence's third win of the season extends his lead to 10 over Webb and 13 over Sexton, the defending champ. Tomac moves into fourth-place but 16 points back and all other riders at this point sit on the outside looking in. Aaron Plessinger bombed out, lucky to finish 18th and drops from third in the standings to sixth. Jason Anderson's season has finished ninth and 10th in the last two rounds, respectively after four straight Top 5s. Hunter Lawrence endurced a brutal crash after one lap and did not finish the race.

In the 250 East class, second year rider and 2-time MXGP MX2 class champion Max Vialle took advantage of mistakes from other riders and led the final seven laps for his first career Supercross win. Vialle made it look fairly easy though, working his way up from fourth and getting around the likes of Haiden Deegan and Cameron Mcadoo.

Deegan grabbed the Holeshot but almost immediately lost the lead to Mcadoo who quickly became the rider to beat and if not for a mistake with about seven minutes remaining that sent him off track, he likely would have won or made the final laps with Vialle a dog fight. But the slowdown put the close-by Vialle into the lead and he won by five seconds. Vialle said he felt good and could have raced a full 30 minutes.

Deegan, winner of the previous round thanks to a gnarly season-ending get-off by Austin Forkner had some close calls including a save coming off a jump that he turned into an acrobatic 360 and an earlier crash in his Heat race. He finished fourth, behind Seth Hammaker who put in a season best third. Jalek Swoll returned from a bad crash in Arlington to grab seventh.

Max Anstie hangs on to the Red Plate for another round, just barely, despite an eighth-place finish. Mcadoo sits just a point back tied with Pierce Brown with three-straight fifth-place finishes. Fifth-place can a Championship make! Vialle has the tie-breaker over Deegan for fourth-place. Both just three points from first-place.

Supercross moves a state over for just the second round ever held in Alabama, the first at Talladega Speedway on March 17, 1984. Too bad this one didn't get scheduled for March 17. Despite the name, Protective Stadium cannot guarantee no crashes for Round 9 on Saturday in Birmingham.