The SuperMotocross World Championship announced one million dollars will be awarded to the 450 champion with $500,000 going to the winner of the 250 class as they detailed the full season points payout for the combined series and detailed race format procedures for the three-round playoff.
During the 2023 season, $4.5 million will be awarded to competitors in Monster Energy Supercross and Pro Motocross series through the points fund. An additional $5.5 million will be awarded to competitors in the playoffs that on September 9 at zMax Dragway in Charlotte, North Carolina, September 16 at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois and September 23 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles.
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The lucrative purse extends through the top 22 points finishers in both classes. In 450s, the second-place rider will earn $500,000 with third-place earning $250,000. Six figure payouts extend through eighth-place ($100,000) with the final position of 22nd paying $22,000.
The 250 purse pays six figures though fourth place with $10,000 going to 15th and $2,000 to 22nd.
In addition to the points fund, each of the three events will pay out more than $400,000 in prize money with $100,000 going to the winner of the 450 class and $50,000 paid to the 250 winner.
SuperMotocross also announced the format for the final three races.
The top-20 riders in each division will automatically be seeded in the three rounds and awarded points based on the combined standings. Riders ranked 21st through 30th will be invited to race in a Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) to fill the final positions in the motos.
The rider seeded first in combined Supercross and Motocross points will be awarded 25 points before the first round, the equivalent of a Pro Motocross moto victory. The second seed will receive 22 points, third-place will receive 20, fourth receives 18 and each position below will decrement by one point until 20th receives two.
In the playoff, the same points structure repeats for Round 1 with the exception that 21st will receive one point. Round 2 will award double points and Round 3 will award triple points.
The SuperMotocross World Championship races will be run in a two-moto format, consisting of 25 minutes plus one lap for each race with an Olympic-style scoring system. First place will earn one point, second place two points and so on through the field. The lowest score will be awarded the win and first-place points for the event.
A rider can compete in only one division.
After winning the 250 West Supercross Championship, Jett Lawrence is likely to end the season among the top 20 in points in that division, but he will have to declare which championship he wants to chase. Lawrence said earlier this season that he intends to stay on a 450 during the playoffs and with a perfect performance of eight moto wins in four Motocross rounds, he has climbed to 11th in the standings and could be as high as eighth at the end of the RedBud Nationals, which is the next round of the season.
If one of the riders seeded in the top 20 in points is unable to compete or has qualified for both and chosen to compete in the other division, his position will be filled by one of 10 riders from the LCQ.
Eli Tomac is currently sixth in combined points and unlikely to drop out of the top 20, but his participation in the SMX playoffs is in question because of a ruptured Achilles tendon suffered in the penultimate Supercross round at Denver.
The SuperMotocross World Championship came about quickly once the Supercross and Motocross series began discussing their 2023 television rights.
“It was the product of media rights,” Dave Prater, vice president of Supercross told NBC Sports at the beginning of the season. “When we took the media rights out together and started talking to different companies, that was one of the pieces of feedback we were getting - that the modern sports’ fan expects a postseason playoff as well as a World Series or Super Bowl to cap off the season. We were hearing that from multiple organizations, so it seemed like the right way to go.”
Fans of supercross and motocross now have not only a playoff, but an extremely lucrative one for the first time in the history of the sport.
