2024 Charlotte SuperMotocross Photo Gallery

2024 Charlotte SuperMotocross Recap

The 2024 SuperMotocross three-round playoff Championship dropped gates on Saturday at zMax Dragway in Charlotte, NC with a veteran and established futures of the sport taking charge with dominating rides.

Now in its second season, the SMX series resets the combined points gained from the Supercross and Motocross seasons - with the top 20 points earners in the 450 and 250 classes automatically qualifying and seeded into the SMX playoff - with a points total equal to a Moto finish. So, Chase Sexton, qualified first with 811 points, entered the playoffs with 25 points, Hunter Lawrence qualified second so he enters with 22 points and so on.

Riders from 21st to 30th in combined points compete in a Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) for the final two positions of the 22-rider field. Any rider who wins a Supercross or Motocross round get an automatic bid to the LCQ.

Each of the three SMX rounds consists of two 20-minute Motos on a hybrid Supercross/Motocross track a la Daytona Supercross using Olympic-style scoring to determine the overall winner but implementing the established Supercross/Motocross points standings structure to determine the eventual Champion. So Round 1 winner gets 25 points, second gets 22 points and so on, However, Round 2 points double then triple for Round 3 thus giving riders who busted out in Round 1 a better chance at securing the $1 million prize in the 450 class and the $500,000 price in the 250 class.

Whew...gotta do, due diligence for the handful of you who read these race recaps and need a reminder of the borderline complex rules for the SMX playoff. Well, not really complex just highly involved. I wonder how soon the powers-that-be make more changes.

At any rate, Eli Tomac and reigning 450 class SMX champ Jett Lawrence, tied in points at Charlotte each taking a win and placing second with the overall victory going to Lawrence who took the Moto 2 checkers.

Tomac burst from the gate in Moto 1 and checked out. The veteran returned from a thumb injury, incurred at the tail-end of Supercross, with two rounds remaining in the Motocross season and showed flashes of his former self taking third overall at Ironman. In Moto 1 though, he was his former self. No one had the gas in body or bike to run him down. He won. Easy. A total beat down. Not even the high-flying Lawrence could catch him.

A bit different in Moto 2, as Justin Cooper got the early lead with Lawrence and Tomac behind him. Tomac cruised past Lawrence then took the lead with less than four minutes ticked off, Lawerence grabbed second about two minutes later. Lawrence, in his first round of racing also from a thumb injury that ended his Motocross season early, hardly looked weary as he trailed Tomac for another 10 minutes before making the pass right before the sand section. He pushed forward from there taking the Moto 2 win and overall.

"I surprised myself more than you guys," Lawrence said. (He must have had a direct feed to the broadcast because that's ALL the commentators kept talking about. Give it a rest already!)

"That race pace is a little different than practice. I remember back in 2023 I was sad, I really wanted to battle Eli in outdoors and this is as closest thing we get to outdoors (so) it was a really cool thing to do. I can say a little check off the bucket list. Super pumped to be up here again. I'm back."

Sexton, the recently crowned 2024 Motocross Champ, factored little upfront but finished third overall on a (4-3) day. Hunter Lawrence (6-3) and Ken Roczen (5-5) rounded out the Top 5. Jason Anderson, who qualified third in overall points to get into the SMX playoffs, crashed the day before and was not able to race.

Sexton still holds the points lead in the SMX standings. He qualified first for the SMX playoffs so entered the round with 25 points. Jett Lawrence qualified sixth so started with 16 points; Tomac qualified 11th and entered with 11 points. With the points gained for SMX Round 1, Sexton now has 45 points, Jett Lawrence moves into second with 41 points, Hunter Lawrence, who started in second to enter the playoffs, drops to third with 40 points and Tomac moves into fourth with 33 points.

In the 250 class, newly crowned 250 Motocross Champion and reigning SMX champ Haiden Deegan put on a clinic just as he did all summer in Outdoors. The young phenom worked his way up from bad starts in both Motos for the sweep.

In Moto 1, Julien Beaumer looked ripe for his first professional race win leading from the start and quickly checking out with Deegan in ninth. Jo Shimoda, returning from a collarbone break sustained at Unadilla and RJ Hamsphire, who was out for most of Outdoors from injury, chased Beaumer for more than half the race with Hampshire eventually getting into second and trying to close on Beaumer.

Deegan was in third with eight minutes left and a short battle with Hampshire for second resulted in Hampshire veering of course mid-jump, going off the track and hitting the ground hard. He dropped out of the Top 10 but eventually would finish 10th. Deegan, meanwhile, seemingly jumped quad after quad, caught up to Beaumer and won.

In Moto 2, Deegan started eighth with Beaumer again taking the lead after passing Nick Romano just past the Holeshot and Levi Kitchen quickly took up second-place after a minute, then a minute later, Kitchen took the lead. Meanwhile, Deegan rolled into third at the 11 minute mark, three minutes later took over second and four minutes after that evaporated Kitchen's lead. Dominating wins for the young racer to start the playoffs.

"We got to go back to work this week," Deegan said. "Even though I went 1-1 today there was a lot of errors that were made and I'm not happy about it. We're going to go back to work this week but it was nice to win the first one."

Deegan qualified first for the SMX playoffs and started with 25 points, so with his 25 points for SMX Round 1, holds an eight-point lead over Kitchen in the SMX standings, who qualified second for the playoffs entering with 22 points and finished third overall (5-2) on Saturday for 20 points.