Round 2 of the 2024 SuperMotocross World Championship will help define the playoffs as fans wait to see if anyone other than Jett Lawrence can win. Finishing second in Moto 1 last week at zMax Dragway in Concord, North Carolina, and winning the second race, Lawrence has three overall victories in four playoff races. He has finished off the podium only once in eight motos. The field missed what might have been their only chance to dethrone him, with Lawrence returning from a thumb injury and potentially covered in a fine coating of rust.
“I’m as surprised as you,” Lawrence said after winning last week’s overall.
Lawrence and Eli Tomac split the motos last week at zMax, making him the third rider to win a playoff moto. Chase Sexton swept Round 1 of 2023, and Lawrence waved Ken Roczen by at Chicagoland Speedway the following week in Moto 2, mistakenly believing it would help him in the points.
Points are doubled for Round 2 of the playoffs and tripled for the finale, an incremental points system that is unique to SMX, but none of that matters if Lawrence continues to win. He controls his fate along with points’ leader Sexton, who, despite finishing third overall, was well off the pace of Lawrence and Tomac. Psychologically, Sexton is in a must-win situation.
That will be difficult since Lawrence has 41 combined wins in head-to-head, premier division matchups, according to Clinton Fowler at WeWentFast.com. Lawrence has statistically dominated Sexton along with the remainder of the field since he graduated to the 450 class in 2023, leading every meaningful category.
But Lawrence has not had to contend with ‘beast-mode’ Tomac because that rider has been injured in the past two seasons. The six-time champion recently returned from a thumb injury as well, and after announcing that 2025 will be his final full-time season, he has something to prove. Lawrence scored the overall victory last week, but Tomac was arguably stronger by leading the most laps and never losing contact with the defending SMX champion.
Dominance in the 250 class is less clear. Haiden Deegan got poor starts in both motos at zMax Dragway and put on a clinic about how to pass the competition. Giving up considerable ground at the beginning of motos is risky and could cost him as the incremental points system becomes more impactful.
Julien Beaumer had a breakout ride last week in North Carolina. He led the most laps in Moto 1 before succumbing to Deegan in the final laps. In the second race, he was caught by Jo Shimoda midway and had to dig deep to keep from being passed. Had he fallen from fourth to fifth, he would have dropped from second overall to fourth and failed to score his first professional dirt bike podium.
Previous SuperMotocross Winners
2024
zMax Dragway: Jett Lawrence [Moto results 2-1]
2023
Los Angeles Coliseum: Jett Lawrence [1-1]
Chicagoland Speedway: Jett Lawrence [1-2]
zMax Dragway: Chase Sexton [1-1]
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