The High Point National was round four of the AMA Pro Motocross Championship, and we got a little bit of everything: great track, bad weather, a moto ended early, and hey, that’s High Point in a nutshell, right?

Sad to see the TV crew (AHEM WEEGE) refused to acknowledge the 25th anniversary of Kelly Smith’s upset win at High Point in the mud—the first-ever win for KTM in AMA competition, which you could argue kicked off the current run of success they’re on now. All the talking points were there: mud, a KTM up front (Aaron Plessinger), the quarter-century round number, but NOPE, nothing on the TV. I’d like to grow the sport, but others (WEEGE) seem to want to keep it down.

Okay, onto the 2025 edition of the race!

Jett Lawrence won again! His 1-3 scores were enough to get the job done, with a bad start and pouring rain holding him back for a bit in moto two, to the point where I thought his brother Hunter would get the overall. But nope, Jett did enough to get into third in moto two with what looked like no tear-offs even. Once the kid got settled into what he could and couldn’t do on the slick track with a paddle tire, he got busy passing guys.

Good thing, also, because the red flag came out to end the moto early because of lightning in the area, and Jett had only gotten into third two laps prior to get the OA.

Can we end the “Jett is pushing 100 percent out there and just makes it look easy” talk? I mean, he stalls his bike halfway through moto one and drops to third behind Aaron Plessinger and Hunter Lawrence. He gets right by Hunter ASAP and then sets off after AP; three laps later, he gets the KTM rider, sets his fastest lap of the race right when he gets by to settle himself in, and then cruises to the win. Here are his lap times and probably what he’s thinking:

Lap 4- 2:06.5 “Okay, got the lead, let’s cruise this thing home.”
Lap 5- 2:06.2 “Where do we want to eat tonight? There’s that Outback by the airport—that sounds good.”
Lap 6- 2:14.7 “CRIKEY!! Stalled it, what an idiot I am.”
Lap 7- 2:06.6 “Okay, got Hunter—where’s AP?”
Lap 8-2:06.2 “Oh there he is, no worries—I got time.”
Lap 9-2:08.7 “WHOA! Big swap there, good thing it’s in the back & the cameras didn’t get that! Whew!”
Lap 10- 2:05.5 “Okay, got AP, that wasn’t hard. Let’s focus here and put in a heater to get that gap.”
Lap 11-2:07.7 “Where do we want to eat tonight? There’s that Outback by the airport—that sounds good.”

When this dude has to focus, put in a heater, and get someone, he does it. Then he cruises and does just enough to bring the win home, which does separate him a bit from some other all-timers like Stew and RC, who just wanted to crush everyone’s soul every lap outdoors. Phenomenal to watch, really.

I can’t quite figure out Eli Tomac this year. The four-time 450MX champion has won two motos (only guy besides Jett, ICYWW), but he’s also got a fourth, a fifth, and then a crash-induced ninth. In the first moto, he got his traditional every-third-or-fourth-moto bad start, but then he was ripping through the pack and even set the fastest lap of the race. He caught up to Justin Cooper and AP in 3rd and 4th and should’ve just gone right by. But then he just…stopped. Couldn’t get by the guys and settled for his fifth. I feel like the old Eli Tomac goes right by both dudes and gets that third. Then he goes 3-1 for first overall. This season has seen him, and I wouldn’t call them “weirdo” rides because he’s right there, but he’s been very hot and cold week to week.

Hunter Lawrence has an incredible, consistent 450MX career, never finishing out of the top five. But he’s yet to win an overall. At High Point, he had the overall until his brother decided he would get third after a so-so start. He got close to Tomac in moto two about halfway through, but as he told us on the Pulpmx Show, he ran out of tear-offs. He said he wasn’t going to stop for goggles; there was no plan to do that, so once he ran out, that was it for the charge. Interestingly enough, he said that he heard Tomac was out of roll-offs also, so ET was going to have to toss goggles until the red flag came out to end the moto early.

Something I’ve been paying attention to is the clear delineation between the top five and everyone else. The last two weeks it’s been the same group in the top five in both 450MX motos (Jett, Hunter, ET, Justin Cooper, and AP), and in fact, out of the possible 40 top-five spots through eight motos, we’ve had just two riders (Jason Anderson at Pala, Jorge Prado at Hangtown—so yay Kawasaki?) sneak in there, and they both got fifths, breaking into the “Golden Circle” of the top five guys. I think RJ Hampshire can do it, maybe Anderson again?

Haiden Deegan answered Chance Hymas’s perfect day last weekend with an almost perfect day at High Point. The only thing Deegs didn’t do was get the two holeshots in his motos, but other than that, it was “See ya” for the Yamaha rider. He really was on cruise control out there in both motos, and last year at this track, we saw two great motos coming from the back for Deegan, where he used his speed and stamina to almost win the overall. This year, he didn’t need that stamina as he had all the speed and starts he needed.

Speaking of Hymas, he rode great in the first moto to come up to fifth after a bad start, and in the second moto, I thought it was going to be on as he got to second right away behind Deegan, but alas, the #38 slowly pulled away. It was still going to be a 5-2 day for Hymas for second overall until the last lap when he caught his knee in a rut and lost a spot. That wasn’t the worst thing, though; the worst thing was he thinks he may have damaged the ligament in his good knee. We’ll wait for MRI results, but it doesn’t look good for Hymas, who got the ACL fixed in his other knee this past off-season.

Part of the reason Deegs has such a big lead is because who’s the second-best rider in the 250MX class right now? We’ve got guys like Hymas, Levi Kitchen, Jo Shimoda, Tom Vialle, and even Garrett Marchbanks, who, at times, looks like that next guy but can’t seem to find the consistency they need. Each rider has had motos where they’re absolutely the man on fire and then others where they look like they’re actually on fire, like Ricky Bobby. I don’t know, man; I’m waiting to see who emerges to put it all together. Kitchen this week looked like the guy but lost some spots in moto two, same as Shimoda, who crashed his way back. Vialle got the runner-up honors this week, but really, he used good starts and decent speed to do that—not like he crushed it, right?

-We did our review pod with JT and Weege the other day, and it may as well have been the Jorge Prado show. So, I’m done talking about Prado and his struggles here. Some people, AHEM JT, want to say the Kawasaki is the issue, and while I’m sure he’s not stoked with the bike that HE set up and HE chose to sign with, there’s no way in hell a factory motorcycle surrounded by that many smart people can be as bad as Prado is making it look right now. Hopefully, at Southwick, he can get a little better, but so far, this is a disaster.

-Casey Cochrane has been very good to start the season as he missed all of SX with an injury. 11-9 at High Point, 7th overall in the points, and with him needing a ride for next year, I’d say he’s putting his best foot forward so far through the four races.

-When Weege said that Seth Hammaker’s third in the first moto was his first podium in MX in his career, I definitely did a double take. But yeah, it’s true. Seth faded back in moto two, most likely from his injury that caused him to miss Thunder Valley, but still a strong showing for his first race back.

-We’re going to change the “IDK Man” award to the “Nate Thrasher” award because there’s no rider out there, in SX or MX, that I can’t figure out less. Nate’s had a terrible start to the outdoors, but this week he pulled two great starts and then went 10-10, which, sure, on a Star Yamaha, he shouldn’t really go that far back, but man, it’s a WHOLE lot better than it’s been. Yeah, IDK man.

-That AP goggle stop in moto two was a thing of beauty; usually, those things don’t go that well—heck, I watch GNCC racers who do it all the time, and they don’t do very fast either. But Red Bull KTM at High Point? They NAILED that goggle swap for Plessinger. Who knew Carlos Rivera was such a magician?

-To come back from a serious injury and race the first race of the year and to be the best Triumph guy? Not too shabby, Jalek Swoll! He was even better in moto two after fading a bit in moto one, which is to be expected; there’s nothing like racing. Trust me, I was on a bunch of teams, and the riders always want to be the best one on the team, even if it’s just a ninth or whatever.

Thanks for reading OBS. We’ve got some stats from our guy MX Reference that we’ll bust out for another column before Southwick to look at an overall picture of the series after four races. You can email me at [email protected] if you want to chat about this or something else.