The Fastest Growing Club in Supercross
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The Oldest Supercross Winners Club (30+) has nearly doubled since the start of 2023.
When Eli Tomac turned 30 in the fall of 2022 only 15 Supercross races (premier class) had been won by riders over the age of 30.
Less than two and a half years later, 27 mains have been won by riders 30+ and four new names have joined that list.
Maybe this only happened in Michigan in the 1980s but I remember parents, aunts, uncles, etc. “celebrating” 30th birthdays with black balloons and banners that said ‘over the hill’ as if they were also collecting Social Security in the fourth decade of life.
Professional athletes playing or riding past 30 were novelties. In Supercross, the 30-year-old winner didn’t exist. Until John Dowd said “hold my Metamucil” and won the very muddy 1998 Charlotte Supercross.
I couldn’t believe I actually won. I know a lot of stuff happened, and a few guys fell, but I’ll take it.
–John Dowd on the 1998 Charlotte SX win.
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The 1998 season was the 25th year of the AMA Supercross Championship and now, in the middle of the 2025 season, what was once an absolute rarity is completely common.
So common that, for the first time ever, three riders over the age of 30 have won in the same season: Tomac (32), Malcolm Stewart (32) and Ken Roczen (30) all won in 2025.
To unearth an overused phrase from five years ago: this is the new normal.
Of the 33 riders to score 450SX points within the first eight rounds of the 2025 season, 15 are 30+, four are 29 and one of those 29 year olds (Justin Hill) will be 30 before the Supercross season ends.
Oldest Supercross Winners (450SX)
Tricenarian Tomac
Eli Tomac has won nine of his 53 career 450SX main events as a 30-something, which makes him the ‘King’ of the Tricenarians (a fancy word for people in their 30s).
This quirky ‘record’ once belonged to Kevin Windham who, in 2008, became the first rider post-30 to win two main events in the same season (St. Louis & Seattle, 2008).
Five of Windham’s 18 career Supercross wins came after he turned 30 and he was cherished by the fans. It’s easier for the average fan to identify with an athlete who has a wife and four kids and grinds away at his craft and still wins. Windham’s final win (Seattle 2010) came in a main event where he lapped the already-crowned-champion, Ryan Dungey, who finished fourth.
The joy on Windham’s face as he approached the podium that night said everything you need to know about how much fun he had riding a dirt bike in conditions that were simply not fun for most riders.
Tomac, a married father of three, is enjoying that same period of admiration Windham had. But here’s something he can’t snatch away from Windham; the youngest 30-year-old to win. K-Dub was just 8 days past his 30th birthday when he won the 2008 Daytona Supercross.