What Really Happened in Houston, 2026?

We heard it all week: starts matter in Triple Crowns. Shorter races. Three starts. Three chances to put yourself in position, or dig a hole you’ll spend the rest of the night trying to climb out of. And one bad race, or one small hiccup, can be costly… just ask Hunter Lawrence. But lets forget the 12 minutes of racing, and look at the three starts. Just how important are they?

Here’s the idea. What if we ended each race at the holeshot line, or at the end of the opening lap, calculated overall results using the same Olympic scoring format, and compared those to how the night actually developed?

450s: Holeshot, First Lap, and Finish Position Using Olympic Scoring

Obviously, it’s not a perfect match. You can’t account for things like Eli Tomac’s gnarly crash, and Hunter’s uncharacteristic off-track moment. But the trend is hard to ignore. If you don’t nail the start in all three races, you’ve got your work cut out for you.

450s: Lap 1 Starting Position vs. Overall Finish

Getting nerdy for just one second.

• Holeshot position across all three 450 races had a +0.87 correlation with overall finish.
• First-lap position was even stronger at +0.92

Those are massive numbers. To put that into perspective, a correlation of +0.9 means that roughly 80-85% of the finishing order is largely shaped by starting position. That doesn’t mean the race is “over” after lap one, but it does mean riders are mostly racing within a narrow window created off the start.

Of course there are exceptions.

• Christian Craig had excellent starts but struggled to turn them into results
• Chase Sexton also had rough starts and still managed 5th
• Cooper Webb won the overall without a race win, or even a holeshot.

But those results stand out because they go against the trend. And the trend is clear: in Triple Crowns, the start matters even more.

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What about the 250s?

Unsurprisingly, the story is nearly identical.

• Holeshot correlation: +0.88
• First-lap correlation: +0.88

250s: Holeshot, First Lap, and Finish Position

Again, that puts us right around 80% of the overall finishing order being determined by start position. Yes, there’s still plenty of racing to be done. But in both classes, the start is critical. Keep an eye out on them the next time we go Triple Crown racing.