SMX kicks off with Columbus mudder
By Team TMX on 14th Sep 26
The rain had already done its worst by the time the Monster Energy SMX World Championship Playoffs finally got underway in Columbus, turning the track into the sort of greasy, unpredictable mess where momentum can disappear in an instant and simply keeping the bike upright becomes half the battle. So naturally, this was the day Haiden Deegan decided to win his first premier-class race.
The Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing rider went 1-1, winning both shortened motos by more than 17 seconds and looking increasingly comfortable as some of the biggest names in the sport struggled to make sense of the mud. For Deegan, it was the breakthrough he'd been waiting for.
For Jorge Prado, it was almost as significant. The Spaniard had arrived in Ohio as the second seed for the 450SMX Playoffs and left with the red plate after hauling a 3-4 finish out of conditions he freely admitted have produced some of his worst races this year.
And somewhere in between those two stories, Ken Roczen quietly reminded everybody why you should never count him out. The reigning Supercross Champion hadn't raced since May. He returned to competition in Columbus, rode two remarkably clean motos and went home second overall.
It was a strange, wet and occasionally chaotic way to start the SMX postseason.
Deegan's first taste of 450 victory came in the opening moto, although he didn't have to wait long to take charge.
Jorge Prado launched the Red Bull KTM into the lead with Joey Savatgy and Deegan close behind, but before the opening lap had even been completed Deegan had found his way past the Spaniard.
Behind them, Roczen was beginning his own charge, while Hunter Lawrence's afternoon was unravelling almost immediately. The newly crowned Pro Motocross Champion – and top seed for the Playoffs – went down and was forced to start his recovery from the back before another fall effectively ended any hope of salvaging a big result.
Roczen eventually found his way into second and began eating into the gap, taking significant chunks out of the Yamaha rider's advantage. For a while it looked as though Deegan might have to deal with some late-race pressure, but he had an answer. He responded, rebuilt the gap and crossed the line 17.2 seconds clear of Roczen. Prado was third.
The second moto started almost exactly as the first had finished, with Deegan getting out front and Prado and Roczen giving chase. Deegan's clean track was valuable in the conditions, but Roczen wasn't interested in letting the youngster have things all his own way. The Suzuki rider moved past Prado and went after the Yamaha.
Then Deegan settled down. He began using lapped traffic to his advantage and gradually stretched the gap, while behind him Cooper Webb and Prado swapped third place and Roczen kept plugging away. Even a late fall couldn't derail the German's afternoon.
Deegan, meanwhile, was simply too good. He took the chequered flag another 17.1 seconds ahead of Roczen, completing the 1-1 sweep and finally putting his name alongside the premier-class winners.
“This is a dream come true,” he said afterwards. “I just won a 450 race. This is crazy.”
For Prado, the afternoon had a slightly different flavour. Third overall wasn't the result he would have written down before the weekend, particularly given his admission that mud has been his kryptonite this year. But when the points were added up, that 3-4 was suddenly looking rather valuable. He had taken over the SMX championship lead.
“I really don't know what to say,” Prado admitted. “My worst races came in the mud this year and I got up here on the podium, which is amazing for me.”
He now leads Deegan by two points, with Webb another two points behind. Perhaps the biggest loser in the points shuffle was the man who had arrived as the top seed - Hunter Lawrence's 15th overall dropped him from first to sixth.
Roczen, by contrast, climbed from 10th to fourth. For a rider whose stated gameplan was simply to come back, have fun and see where he stood, a 2-2 result was about as good as he could have hoped for. “Couldn't ask for anything more,” he said.
Then there was the 250SMX class, where the afternoon somehow managed to produce an even stranger result.
Cole Davies looked absolutely untouchable in the opening moto. The reigning Eastern Supercross and Pro Motocross Champion grabbed the holeshot and disappeared into the distance, building a lead of almost 20 seconds and lapping as far back as 10th.
With just over three minutes left, he stopped. The Yamaha had apparently encountered an issue and Davies came to a halt on one of the track's jumps. His 20-second advantage evaporated.
Daxton Bennick inherited the lead and kept his Husqvarna upright to take his first moto victory, 18.1 seconds clear of Levi Kitchen. Ryder DiFrancesco was third. Davies was classified 22nd.
It should have destroyed his overall but instead, he came out for moto two and did exactly what champions do when the first race goes horribly wrong. He won.
Davies grabbed the holeshot again, immediately found the sort of rhythm he'd had before the mechanical drama and opened another substantial lead. Bennick settled into second, while Kitchen began the patient work of trying to claw his way forward.
The Kawasaki rider eventually caught Bennick and, with the white flag flying, was close enough to make a move. He didn't waste the opportunity. Kitchen slipped past on the final lap to take second behind Davies, while Bennick dropped to third.
Davies had won the race by 16.5 seconds but still finished only 11th overall.
Kitchen and Bennick were tied on four points apiece, leaving the overall win to the second-moto tiebreaker – and because Kitchen had finished ahead of Bennick in that race, the victory went his way.
It was the first SMX Playoff win of Kitchen's career and, perhaps fittingly for a day when nothing seemed straightforward, it came without him winning either moto.
Kitchen leaves Columbus seven points ahead of DiFrancesco, with Davies now 10 points back in third after what could easily have been a championship-wrecking afternoon.
