Comparing Jett's Rookie Championship Season to Dungey and McGrath

The stats here dont show the depth of the field and how many mud races there were this season which in my opinion makes jett look worse than he was.

If it was dry, his stats would have been crazy this yr. No excuse though. All 3 are studs and had amazing rookie seasons.

I appreciate everything MC did and I'm honestly not that big of a Jett fan, but I chose Jett this time. 

MC did have more wins, but Jett has beaten 4 previous premiere class Supercross champions and a lot of others who've won a main event. Jett also had to deal with the craziest weather, which obviously means something, even if it doesn't mean much.

I would be interested to know how many race wins/ championships dungey and mc were up against compared to Jett. Jett had 4 past champions with 6 total sx championships I think? Probably over 100 race wins between tomac, webb, kenny, chase, anderson and whoever else has won. 
 

Those stats to see what kind of competition they were up against comparatively would be telling. 

Keidrowski, Stanton and Bradshaw finished 2-3-4 behind McGrath.  He had decent competition although I feel they were probably closer to the end of their careers than say Tomac, Webb and Roczen.

Dungey had Stewart, Reed and Villopoto.  Stewart and Reed both got injured early in the season.  After Rd 13 Dungey was only 12 points ahead of RV, and RV had 7 wins to RD’s 4.

Interestingly Dungey would finish no better than third for the next three years until 2014, when he finished 2nd to RV, and only got one win.

That extra layer of stats makes for good bench racing.🤔

Could you do a comparison of the average age of competitors?  

How do mud races make Jett look worse than he was when all the riders had to race the same conditions?

In terms of championships:

Jett was up against 4 past champions (Tomac, Webb, Anderson, Sexton) with 6 championships

Dungey up against 2 past champions (Reed and Stewart) with 4 championships

MC was up against one past champion (Stanton) with 3 championships

In all three years they had the defending champion to deal with.

MC with more total points in two less races in 93. That is all. 
 

Edit: I am wrong. When did they go to 15? 96 was 15 ?

Age comparison

Shows you what a badass Dungey was. That guy is underheated IMO. 

I feel like Jett had the strongest competition across the whole season. Both the amount of champions and how long they were competing.

But Dungey started out with the toughest assignment IMO. No one would have known Chad and James would miss most the season. So a rookie winning that year would have been astronomical odds before A1

I'm sitting here wondering why I _shouldn't_ put Dungey in the top spot!!  

When Kitchen had the loose boot I told my son "Dungey would've buckled that over a triple" and he said "After taking it off mid-air and shaking the dirt out."

Lmao Jett racing 30+ class as a 20 year old. No wonder!

All 3 are impressive.  An * should go by Dungey's name just because it was on a Suzuki!   (RMZ owerner here)

RC#4?

He won nothing in his rookie premier class season and just 1 race (Daytona) the year after that...

I don't know if it's just a peculiarity of this era, or the improvement in training techniques etc but guys are certainly continuing their careers a lot longer than in the past.

Thank you for taking the time to do that. 

He was a slow starter, 25 races before he won his first Supercross.

I think Jett's is probably the most impressive given the field's overall strength, but there are similarities with MC's. Clears RD's imo as RV/James/Chad didn't last the season.

The weird part about MC's is the competition just seemed to stop. I think he would have won anyways, and it will always be iconic because of it never being done and his place in the sport.... but the falloff of the guys who battled just a year or two earlier (Beast, Chicken, Stanton and Bayle left) was crazy and he was just so much more technically sound than his direct age competitors like Fro/Kied/Rocket.

Athletic ability, or at least the athletic ability needed for racing MX, is not in decline at 30. The median age for setting an athletic world record is 28

True but it's the accumulated injuries and slower recovery that really is the difference maker in our sport. A guy setting a world record at 29 in a track and field event probably hasn't broke his collarbone 3 times, had an AC separation in his shoulder, torn his ACL and competed with it torn or not there, broken bones in his hand etc etc

Tomac is the oldest rider to win a championship and that was age 29 or 30. For whatever reason MX/SX is like the NFL. Most players other than kickers and QBs are done playing at a high level by 30. I think soccer is the same way and tennis used to be. NBA and NHL players go a little longer but only by a few years and they generally don't lead the league in any stats after age 30. Being team sports they can still contribute to the team winning games. MX/SX being an individual sport everyone notices the 31 year old with 50 wins running 5-10 every night.

The MC/Jett rookie comparison will always be clouded by MC racing those first 6 races the year prior. That is a lot of experience to gain. Jett won two of his first 6 races but wasn't great in the other 4. It will be interesting to see if he can win at least 10 of his first 22 races which is what MC did. If he can win 2 of his first 5 races next year that will be similar to MC.

If the tracks were as hard as they used to be, it wouldnt matter if there was mud or not. Jett has it easy. 

I'm wondering if the studies you are using pulled any data from motocross racing. 

RC, RV, Dungey, and a host of other top riders either retired before 30, or were past their best years. 

Supercross and motocross, with high rates of injuries is different than other sports. 

Simple tracks make winning harder. Not easier. Everyone can hit the same obstacles and all the best riders are within hundredths of a second of each other.