2025 Pittsburgh Supercross Research
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Round 15: Yinzers! We’re off to Pittsburgh!
Pack your bobos and bumbershoots and brush up on your Pittsburghese because we’re going to the Steel City, the City of Bridges, Iron City, the city that has more nicknames than Apollo Creed!
The last time Supercross visited Pittsburgh, Terry Bradshaw was still a Steelers QB and the Penguins were the worst team in the NHL.
- 2025 will be the third running of the Pittsburgh Supercross.
- The last time SX in the Steel City was in 1983. Broc Glover won.
- The 1978 round was held in mid-May on what cheekily became known as “Mudder’s Day Weekend” because the race is infamously remembered for earning a Wall Street Journal cover story due to its inability to quickly exit the stadium. Bob Hannah won.
2025 Venue: Acrisure Stadium is an open-air, 68,400 capacity football stadium, formerly known as Heinz Field. Home to the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers, Acrisure sits next to the original site of Three Rivers Stadium (where the races were held in 1983 and 1978).
- Officially opened August 18, 2001 with an N’ Sync concert.
- Pittsburgh Fun Fact: In the fall of 1971, Three Rivers Stadium hosted the first ever World Series night game.
Fun Facts
Pulled from the research below, here are some tasty nuggets we thought you might find interesting:
- Only 3 riders in Supercross history have ended a season with more than four consecutive victories (and none of them are Jeremy McGrath – answer below)
- Landen Gordon has pulled three of the four 2025 SMX Next holeshots.
- DYK: Justin Cooper and Malcolm Stewart have passed each for 4th place in the points four times? Since round 9!
- A mulligan for my mullet, please: Aaron Plessinger was buried in 19th in points after 3 rounds. If we treated rounds 1-7 and 8-14 separately, AP would have finished 11th in the first season and 3rd in the second season (which started at Daytona). He’d be 3rd in points, just 18 out of the title fight.
- 5 years, 8 months and 16 days: On the night of the Supercross finale, that’s how long the Pro Circuit Kawasaki championship drought will be. If Seth Hammaker wins 250SX East, the spell is broken.
Sexton’s Back-to-Back.
Chase Sexton’s East Rutherford victory was just his second time winning back to back Supercross rounds (Rds. 15-17, 2023).
Two down. Three to go.
Sexton is attempting to do something only three riders have done in the history of the Monster Energy Supercross Championship: end a season with at least five consecutive wins.
450SX: Most consecutive wins to FINISH a season
- Long, season-ending win streaks are historically rare because riders in title contention typically don’t need to ‘send it’ for the win at the final round.
- Example: Jett Lawrence’s 7th at SLC 2024 was more than enough for the title.
- The two most notable exceptions to this were James Stewart (2007), who won the championship by 51 points and Ricky Carmichael (2001) who won the title by 64 points after a 13-race streak.
- Fun fact: Jeremy McGrath’s longest season-ending streak was in 2000. He won the final two races.
- For Sexton, if he can continue winning, it’s an incredible about-face for the rider who has been, undeniably, the fastest all season but critical mistakes cost him ‘easy’ points, as we fully detailed heading into Daytona.
- At rounds 2, 5, 6, 7 Sexton easily fumbled away a solidly potential 22 points.
Good News/Bad News
- The bad news is that he’s facing a must-win situation. With Cooper Webb finishing 1st or 2nd in 9 of the last 11 rounds, Sexton can’t rely on anyone else getting between them.
- The good news for Sexton is that, unlike Reed in 2003, he’s in full control. If he wins, it doesn’t matter what happens behind him.
Other 450 Points Battles
Barring the unthinkable (even unspeakable!) either Cooper Webb or Chase Sexton will win the 450SX title.
But there are other interesting points battles out there.
Third
Ken Roczen is in no-man’s land in third (-45) but he continues to fight through injuries because:
- It was just two years ago when Webb (-11 in points) DNF-ed round 15 in Nashville and missed the rest of the season.
- One week later, points leader Eli Tomac DNF-ed round 16 in Denver.
- That third place guy (Chase Sexton, -21 headed into Round 15) won the title.
- 3rd in points likely carries bonus money for Roczen, which became very evident in 2023 after he regrettably DNF-ed at SLC and tried to get back on the track. He lost the tiebreaker to Cooper Webb for 3rd.
- 3rd in 2025 would be Roczen’s 5th career top three 450SX season finish.
Battle for Fourth
Justin Cooper and Malcolm Stewart have been playing hot potato with fourth place. For the 4th time in the second half of the season, these two have swapped for 4th in points.
Justin Cooper vs. Malcolm Stewart Points Battle
Even when they were 5th and 6th in points (after rounds 7 and 8) they were separated only by a few points.
And Cooper and Stewart can’t relax because they have Aaron Plessinger coming up hot in 6th after starting the season in 19th (more on him below)
Battle for Ninth
- Dylan Ferrandis and Shane McElrath are separated by just two points (with inactive Jason Anderson between them).
- The edge here has to go to Ferrandis, who has finished top 10 four weeks in a row and was top five in two of those weeks.
- Things are looking up for Ferrandis, who straight didn’t qualify at Anaheim 1 (remember Ryan Breece’s move in the, LCQ?) and missed the Tampa round because he was recovering his chest/shoulder from a weekday crash.
- Ferrandis’ best ever 450SX season finish was 2021 (7th).
- Ferrandis is 9 points behind Justin Hill (8th) and he’s beaten Hill over the last four rounds.
Battle for 12th
- Mitchell Oldenburg currently holds down 12th (+2) over Joey Savatgy, who didn’t score any points at all for four straight rounds (9-12).
- Benny Bloss is 6 points behind Oldenburg
- Colt Nichols is 15th, 8 points behind Oldenburg
- EXPECT: Savatgy is the only rider in this group with a top five finish this season. If he can put together more rides like he did in Philly, he’ll pass Oldenburg and even displace Anderson for 11th for the season.
450 Rider of the week: Aaron Plessinger
It’s like he’s raced two completely different seasons; Aaron Plessinger’s 2025 started off as the worst of his 450 career but with three rounds to go, he’s 17 points away from his best season ever.
AP sank to 19th in the points after DNFs at rounds two and three. He didn’t score a top 5 within the first seven rounds.
“My confidence was super low,” Plessinger said in the East Rutherford press conference, about his early season struggles. “I’d just go to the practice track and just go through the motions.”
To better illustrate his down-then-up 2025, let’s pretend rounds 1-7 and 8-14 were completely different seasons.
- After 7 rounds Plessinger sat 11th in the standings
- His best finish was 7th in Arlington.
Aaron Plessinger: Rounds 1-7
What if the season had started at Daytona, where Plessinger finished third? From rounds 8-14, Plessinger has scored more podiums (5) than he has in any 17 race season in his career.
AP would be a solid third in the points if he could throw away rounds 1-7.
Aaron Plessinger: Rounds 8-14
- Plessinger is ranked 6th in points -16 to 5th place (Malcolm Stewart) and -17 to Justin Cooper (4th).
- Plessinger’s best career season position was 5th (2021).
- We asked him via text if there was a financial (bonus) incentive to getting into the top five in points: “No incentive really. I just wanna make it back up as far as I can, really just to get my mojo back for starting the season like I did.”
- The Pittsburgh Supercross is a second ‘home race’ for him. He’s originally from Hamilton, Ohio, a suburb north of Cincinnati, 4 hours west of Pittsburgh and two hours east of Indianapolis.
- He will have an uncle and some cousins visiting but his parents are busy running East Fork MX in New Vienna, OH. They have an Area Qualifier for the Amateur National Motocross Championships at Loretta Lynn’s
Seth Hammaker: Pro Circuit Savior?
At the risk of jinxing the seemingly-already-jinxed Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki team, Seth Hammaker is in good position to give the team its first title in 5 years, 8 months and 16 days.
That’s how long its been since PC Kawasaki won a title of any kind, the longest dry streak in team history (which dates back to 1991).
Speaking solely of Supercross, if Hammaker can pull this off, he’d end a more than 8 year drought, the longest SX championship title dry spell in team history.
- April 22, 2017 was the last time a PC Kawasaki won a 250SX title. Justin Hill wrapped up the championship with one round to go.
- Hill beat Shane McElrath for the title.
- Hill’s 2017 title ended a 4 years, 7 months, and 14 days drought that went back to 2012, when Blake Baggett won the 250MX crown for PC.
- 8 years, 18 days will be the final SUPERCROSS drought count if Hammaker wins on May 10, 2025.
Pro Circuit Kawasaki Championships 2010-2024
- 1991-2009: Pro Circuit Kawasaki won 24 championships
SMX Next Spotlight
Glendale
- Landen Gordon holeshot and led all 8 laps and set the fastest time of the race by over a half second.
- Victory margin: 4.671
- HIGHLIGHTS
Daytona
- Landen Gordon holeshot again and won Daytona but it was Alexander Fedortsov who led the first 4 laps (and set a fastest lap time two seconds faster) than Gordon.
- Yamaha’s Fedortsov suffered a flat tire on lap five.
- Gordon ran second the first four laps and took over the lead.
- Victory margin: 6.447
Birmingham
- Enzo Temmerman won a wild and crash-filled final, leading the only lap that counts; the last one.
- Holeshot: Landon Gibson.
- Four different riders led at least one of the nine laps run.
- Landen Gordon took an awkward tumble on the downside of the over/under tabletop on lap one and could only get back to 16th
- Ryder Malinoski led laps 5-8, had the win in hand, but crashed on the final lap (finished 5th)
- Temmerman, who was 6th after 3 laps, set the fastest lap of the race: 1:02.250
- Victory margin: 6.970
- HIGHLIGHTS
Foxborough
- Kade Johnson won in the mud, a massive improvement after a DNS in Glendale, and a 7th in Birmingham.
- HIGHLIGHTS
- Landen Gordon took his 3rd holeshot of the season.
- Three different riders led laps: Johnson (laps 1, 2, 4, 6), Luke Fauser, (lap 3), and Landen Gordon (lap 5)
- Victory margin: 5.213
SMX Next: 2025 Podium Finishers
Milestones
450 Milestones
- Chase Sexton’s 14th win tied him with Jason Anderson for 18th on the all-time 450SX wins list.
- Cooper Webb (2,654) is 9th all-time in 450SX points scored. Webb is 85 points behind Jason Anderson.
- Cooper Webb now has 74 podiums (10th all-time). With 4 rounds left in the season, he’s just 1 behind James Stewart and Kevin Windham (75).
- If Kyle Chisholm (181) qualifies out (final 3 rounds), he will tie Eli Tomac (184) for 7th on the all-time 450SX starts list.
250 Milestones
- RJ Hampshire has 26 podium finishes. He’s now in a three-way tie for 4th all-time with Shane McElrath and Martin Davalos. A 27th podium ties him with Jordon Smith and Stephane Roncada for 2nd.
- RJ Hampshire is 11 points away from passing Barry Carsten for second place on the all-time 250SX most points scored list.
- RJ Hampshire now has 75 250SX main event starts. He’s in a 3-way tie for 8th on the all-time 250SX starts list with Alex Martin and Kyle Peters. A 76th start will tie him with Josh Hansen for 7th all-time.
- Austin Forkner (13) is in a multi-way tie for 3rd on the all-time most 250SX wins list. A 14th win would give him sole possession of 3rd.