2024 Philadelphia Supercross Photo Gallery

2024 Philadelphia Supercross Recap

That Rocky 2 reference from last week was a bit premature.

Premature. Immature. Overture. 2112 Overture. Insecure. Literature. Fun. Remember that band? Fun Dot. Hmmm, that all came out of left field. Do you know where that term hails? At any rate...

The 2024 Monster Energy Supercross season hit up the City of Brotherly Love on Saturday for Round 15 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, PA in the series' first stop at the home of the Liberty Bell in 44 years.

Not a whole lot of excitement in the 450 class other than youth showing why it reigns supreme in this type of contest. Jett Lawrence who crashed in his Heat race ended up with a bad gatepick but it didn't matter. He slipped through the pack, grabbed the Holeshot, headed down the runway and took off from there. Like a jet plane.

Eli Tomac gave chase for a few laps before handing the reigns over to teammate Cooper Webb, the only rider left with a real chance of taking the Championship from Lawrence, but he didn't last all that long, never mounting much of a threat to the dominating Lawrence who hails from Australia. Behind Webb, reigning Champion Chase Sexton worked his way up from fifth getting around Tomac around the 12 minute mark and six minutes later passed Webb in the whoops, as the two put on a bit of a dogfight only to bump into each other briefly allowing Sexton to make the full pass and ride away with second-place from there.

Webb entered the round just five points back of Lawrence for the lead but his efforts to limit the damage proved futile after losing second-place to Sexton. On the final lap just before the final turn, Jason Anderson caught up to him, the two banged bars and Webb hit the dirt. Anderson grabbed third, his first podium since Round 6 at Glendale. Webb quickly got up and secured fourth before Tomac passed. Webb falls 12 points back of Lawrence with two rounds remaining.

"There's only one option with the start, is (to) get a good start and be up there," Lawrence said. "On this track, that's difficult to pass, it definitely helped. We're still focusing on each race. The job is not done yet, we've got to stay focused and make sure we execute these last two rounds."

Yep, bad things can happen in the penultimate race in Denver. Ask Tomac.

The booth commentators' on-air wishful thinking of some type of carnage created by Haiden Deegan failed, instead the natural havoc oft created by the 250 East class this season offered all the drama one needs to keep watching.

Seth Hammaker broke out with the Holeshot looking good for his first win of the season. Behind him followed Jalek Swoll and Peirce Brown. Way behind them ran Deegan and Tom Vialle, the only two remaining in title contention. Remember, Cameron Mcadoo crashed out last week in Nashville ending his 2024 title chances. Thus, Vialle entered the round with a 13 point lead over Deegan and began the race in 10th with Deegan two spots behind him.

As those two slowly worked their way up front, the occupants of the booth wholly predicting the young gun Deegan to mess with the veteran racer Vialle or at least punt him off the track to close that points gap. Well, the two raced and let everyone up front decide their fate.

And, somewhere Max Anstie lurked.

Anstie, who at one time held the points lead until his bike died at the mudder in Birmingham, started riding Hammaker's fender around the midway point of the race and took the lead on a great pass at the five minute mark. He set off for his first win of the season partly thanks to Swoll.

With less than a minute left, Swoll attempted an aggressive pass coming into a turn on Hammaker for second taking them both out and off the podium. With those two out of the way, Vialle moved into 2nd. Wait, what?

Yeah, by now Vialle and Deegan worked their way through the pack and joined a caravan of six riders vying for the win and podium spots. Deegan yet to T-bone Vialle into oblivion and he would not. Maybe next time out the commentators will get their wish. I digress.

The Swoll Hammaker crash put Brown into third for his first podium of the year but at the start of the last lap, Brown cross rutted off the finish line jump right into the tuff blocks. Brutal. He eventually rejoined the race and finished 14th. Anstie took the checkers, Vialle in second and Deegan third with the latter two fist bumping at the end and all three seemingly chums afterwards.

Vialle pushes his lead to 15 points over Deegan with a round remaining so if he plays it smart the man from France with two MX2 MXGP titles under his belt will secure his first regional Supercross title at the final round in Salt Lake City where East meets West. Unless Deegan...