2024 Daytona Supercross | Kickstart Recap & Photo Gallery

With Derek Drake on the sidelines for the time being, Toyota of Redlands/BARX/Suzuki bumped Anthony Bourdon to the 450 Class. The French rider has been very impressive in his first full US season and added to his CV with the 21st fastest lap in Timed Qualifying. Again, we wouldn’t be surprised to see him signed with a team to race here in 2025.

Count’em. The long rhythm lane after the mechanics area had plenty of potential sequences for riders to do, and Cooper Webb took his time on Friday to figure out how many jumps were in the lane.

Through the stroke.

Tropical print pants and a jailhouse striped top. We’d expect nothing else from Justin Hill. The Monster Energy/Team Tedder rider took a brutal hit from Freddie Noren in the early laps of the Main Event and had to DNF but was on his feet and chatting with people in the pits at the end of the night.

Coty Schock’s start to the East Region has been great to see. The rider has had a tough go with injuries and support over the last few years, but an agreement that has him fully immersed in the Muc-Off/FXR/ClubMX/Yamaha program has been just the thing he needed. Schock has done all the laps, finished in the top-10, and stayed mostly clear of issues through the first three rounds (minus an apparent collarbone break) to be ranked sixth overall in the championship. Podium? Potentially.

Red bikes, red plates with Team Honda HRC’s Jett Lawrence…

And Fire Power Honda’s Max Anstie. Despite having the top spot in the 450 Class and 250 East Region, Honda is still ranked third overall in the Manufacturers Championship and trails lead Yamaha by 35 points. An OEM’s best scores on a night in the 250 and 450 Class are used to determine the points, and in the case of Triumph and Beta, only their top result is used (Beta in 450, Triumph in 250).

The caliber of riders we saw go through the whoops with their feet off the pegs in Timed Qualifying made it obvious that the Daytona track was not easy. We have to give guys like Eli Tomac credit, though, because a situation like this would cause most mortals to chop the throttle and instead ET hit the gas even harder and got through the last of the rollers in an eye-blink.

Florida boy in the Florida sand. Adam Cianciarulo grew up within an hour or so of Daytona and this year’s trip to the Speedway was very sentimental for the Monster Energy Kawasaki rider for various reasons, from his return to full strength after a hand injury to the time spent with family and friends. AC celebrated his 12th place result in the feature with a mini burnout on the asphalt.

Shot after the second round of afternoon rain. The AMA decided to cut Timed Qualifying short soon after this, a decision that sort of caught us by surprise, as the entire 250 Class did their second round of practice sessions, but the 450 Class was spared from making more of a mess. We didn’t get the message until much later, when we’d ventured all the way to the other side of the track to shoot the big-bore laps from the high banks.

Clay capped, smothered, and covered.

Dirt Wurx was hired by the Speedway to sculpt and maintain the course. This was a massive change in procedure for the property, who have long relied on Mark Barnett for the build, but it does bring some continuity from the other sixteen rounds of the SX championship to the longest-running race on the schedule.

Essential oils.

Bam, clear vision. Goggle guys know to be prepared when they head to the speedway, as the mixed elements on the track and the high odds of wet weather mean their riders may want to swap from the standard setup of laminated tearoffs to roll-offs. SCOTT Sports’ rep John Knowles had a 9800 gearbag with both options.

What a feeling this must be…

Shoutout to Max Anstie and Yarrive Konsky for their efforts to keep custom helmet painters in business. During a trip home, the rider found an old lid of his father’s that had a wild finish and sent a picture to his boss. Konsky then commissioned Tagger Designs to come up with a modern replica for Anstie, and the team surprised him with it at Daytona.

Bleached hair, clothes, Breathe-Right strips. Everything always comes back in style after a few years, and we’ve seen a slew of riders rocking the skin-tone nasal bands on the starting line lately.

Marshal Weltin, 12 O’Clock Boy. The Rock River Yamaha rider told us that his loopout to start 250 Heat Race One was the most embarrassing moment he’s ever had as a pro, that the bike got wheelspin on the wet gate and then sudden traction on the clay. Weltin bounced back from this mishap by winning the LCQ and scoring a career-best ninth in the 250 Main Event.

Jeff Stanton was honored for his past achievements at the tri-oval by being named the Grand Marshal of the Daytona Supercross. 6-Time was on hand for Friday’s media session and evening happy hour mixer, then told riders to fire their bikes up and waved the green flag during 250 Heat One.

We’ve heard A LOT of “make motocross mainstream” comments lately, but this (clearly stolen) sign and two recent trips to the local grocery store has us thinking: is any other sport used as prominently for in-store advertisements as SX? Almost every gas station has some sort of dirt bike-heavy promotion from Monster Energy or Red Bull, and we spotted cardboard cutouts of dirt bikes or racers in action at two different grocery stores in Southern Illinois. We don’t see anything similar from Gatorade for their stick and ball sport athletes, and trust us, we’re always looking.

Jared Lesher got some screentime during Race Day Live on Saturday afternoon and the two-stroke hero was ripping when the cameras were on him. The rider’s flow and style was fun to watch and it had us thinking, “Where would he have placed in 2004?” Lesher is one of the first to get gear from Malcolm McCassy’s newest project, Mendid.

Why wouldn’t Team Honda HRC’s prybar be this trick?

We had a great talk with Justin Barcia on Friday about his season so far and the well-known challenges he’s facing with the setup of his motorcycle. “It always feels similar when you are struggling or are down in a hole, but this time I think I have been able to stay levelheaded. I have other things to worry about, and being with my family is my comfort zone,” said the Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/GASGAS Factory Racing rider. “When you’re really struggling, you can have fits or tantrums, and I haven’t done that and I’m proud of myself. When everything clicks, we’ll be ready to go.” Watch the Pre-Race News Break for the full convo.

Bright and bold was the big trend for Daytona gear. Alpinestars and FLY Racing used the race to debut limited-edition sets, while O’Neal and others made sure to outfit their riders in the most colorful looks from their catalogs.

We’ve really enjoyed getting to known Jeremy Hand and his father, Carl, over the last few years. The Ohio privateer waited until the series was on the East Coast to line up, made his first 450 Main Event of the season at Daytona, and finished a respectable 17th.

Tire covers have become a must-have for pro race teams. This is a recent thing and can be traced to the US MXGPs that happened in the past decade, as the Europeans always kept their rubbers clean with wraps from brands like Hurly. A few factory wrenches over here took note and now nearly everyone, from privateer to factory effort, has the fabric and Velcro covers in a cabinet.

Ready for the worst. The Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/GASGAS crew keeps a high-pressure fire extinguisher filled with water on their track cart so they can quickly spray mud off a bike/out of the radiator louvers in extreme conditions.

One of the wildest SX Futures races we’ve ever seen came down to the final lap and a 0.263 margin of victory by Drew Adams over Cole Davies. The youngsters will line up three more times this season: STL, Foxborough, and Salt Lake City.

Drew Adams, SX Futures winner. The Tennessee native and longtime Team Green prospect is on a fast track to the Pro Circuit team.

Cole Davies, SX Futures runner-up. The New Zealander is on a short-term contract with the KTM Group’s amateur division and will hit the major events as he and his family contemplate a full-time move to America.

Casey Cochran, SX Futures podium finisher. The decorated rider is coming to the end of his amateur career and will soon join Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing in the 250 Class.

We’re in the middle of a golden age for SX and everyone wants to see it. Daytona was the third venue in a row with a record-setting crowd (Glendale and Arlington both saw best-ever turnouts) and fans filled every almost available seat on the massive grandstand. Wonder what the view from the top row of Section 444 was like?

The grates didn’t look very grippy.

The wrenches knew better than to roach their MechanixWear mits in the mud and instead wore heavy duty, textured rubber gloves to the gate to clear out the mud. KTM had orange, Kawasaki had green, and others were black or blue.

Power move. Neither Tom Vialle nor Cameron McAdoo took the sight lap ahead of the 250 Main Event.

The dark dirt/red clay looks like a Reese’s cup…

If you get to go to a 250 East or Pro Motocross round this year, pay close attention to Haiden Deegan for a few laps and just watch him ride. The Monster Energy/Star Racing/Yamaha rider’s technique is exciting to see in person, as he knows when to be wild and aggressive through rhythm sections but can also tiptoe through the most technical inside rut.

Première Victoire

Pick a line, there’s plenty of them. This section didn’t get reworked between the 250 Main Event and the 450 Main Event.

Props to Benny Bloss and the Liqui Moly Beta Factory Racing Team for scoring their first top-ten of the season in Daytona. Benny has been building over the last few weeks and the Italian bike looked at home in the deep ruts and tricky conditions. The team will be back to full strength at Birmingham, as Colt Nichols will make his long-awaited debut.

Of course Ty Masterpool’s first 450 SX Main Event happened at the gnarliest, most outdoor-esque race of the year. The HBI Racing rider told us that he had a little more than a week on the bike going into the season due to complications with his appendix and ankles, but he relied on instinct and finished in 16th.

This wasn’t the first time we’ve seen Eli smoke out Daytona, but according to Steve Matthes, the heavy white fog from the YZ450F was from a leaking seal around the engine’s head, not the clutch. Tomac said in the press conference that he was unaware of the issue and that it did not impact the bikes’ performance.

Given the recent history between these two, like how Ferrandis has stated that Roczen blocked him from joining the Suzuki team or riding at MotoSandbox in Florida, we were really interested to see how this battle played out. The Honda rider got around the Suzuki rider at the halfway point of the Main Event, but a hard crash in the long rhythm put Ferrandis back to eighth in the results. Roczen, meanwhile, finished fifth.

After seeing the replay of Aaron Plessinger’s big crash in the 450 Main Event, his trackside “repairs” made perfect sense. The hard slam knocked the front-end of the Red Bull KTM out of sorts and the rider rolled on to finish 18th.

Alright, which one of you hopped the fence first?

Jett Lawrence’s third of the season might be the biggest one yet. The Team Honda HRC rider had only been to Daytona once before, as a 250 Class competitor, and his technique of perfect timing and precision worked perfectly on the brutal track. The rookie now has a double-digit advantage in the championship standings.

No, Eli didn’t win, but the response from the fans would make you think otherwise. The seven-time winner got the biggest cheers from the masses that rushed the staged and seemed to soak in the moment. Will he be back for another go? We should know before too long.

And then there were four in the title fight. Onto to Alabama.