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Never seen that pic before... 🤔
Looking through this Damon Huffman come to mind - 2-125 West titles in dominate fashion, was supposed to be a threat to JMG, came away with only one SX win and no titles.
Damn. When read through that list and came to Carmichael's streak. 2000 - 2006. It reminded of how solid that guy was. It's a safe bet that he could of added another 4 titles between MX and SX had he gone longer. Absolutely astonishing what he did during his career.
It must have been disheartening for the rest of the field having to compete for 2nd place during Carmichael's career.
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What's even crazier to me: If you take four riders out of the list, the Ryan's, ricky, and McGrath, it instantly goes from 24/52 riders/championships to 20/32 riders/championships.
Those four were insane and back to back eras.
It’s usually someone sitting on their couch that talks about participation trophies. All those guys that line up and make mains are bad asses, and anyone who’s a former 250 champion even more so.
The original link, there’s a few more pics in it
https://www.vitalmx.com/news/news/Welcome-Back-Christophe-Pourcel,3567
I’m gonna lean towards Brian Swink on this one! So much talent, just couldn’t make the jump off the 125!
Some guy named McGrath had a lot to do with that….
Swink had many MX wins in the 125 class, and multiple podiums indoors and out on a 250.
Should he have won a bunch of overalls - yes.
Was his overall career more disappointing than some other highly touted riders…no.
Maybe this has been mentioned but Pastrana went from a 125 championship to never winning a 250/450 overall, correct? Did he ever win a 250 Supercross?
No…and he really technically only raced 4 250 Nationals
Yeah, he's got to be the all-time biggest flame-out in the big bike class. Love the guy, but it's true that he hardly did anything past the 125s.
I'm a little late to the party but if you want to look at the data, here you go!
Can honestly all be traced back to lack of knowledge about brain injuries. He was never the same after his hits at Dilla/Shoug in 01. Then his knees and shoulders got destroyed shortly after
Those stats are super-interesting. Like Reed's numbers you would expect to be higher. He was always a clinch rider who could win when it counted.
You made a very good point, and made me do a little more research instead of Swink’s name just popping in my head. Keith Turpin of course, Zip-Ty and Jimmie Gaddis of course!! But one guy that should’ve gotten many wins after moving up is Travis Pastrana! Sucks to say that, but it’s true. Hate to pick on Todd DeHoop or Denny Stevenson as well, but they also disappointed a lot of people.
My votes would be for any past 250 SX champ who never managed to get at least one podium in 450 SX. That at least shows one proficient race on the big bike to make it onto the box at the end of the night against the world's best. Though we may have to throw away any complete mudders that happened.
I agree. Even Justin Hill has a few 450 SX podiums.
Pit Row
Huff-Daddy should have won more Big Bike races, but he had one 250 SX win and many O/A’s in the 125MX.
He also raced for Team USA in the ISDE, Endurocross, and other off-road races / series to successful levels.
I don’t think you can label him as having a “sub-par” career.
I was a big fan of his.... maybe someone has it but I think transworld posted a video back then of him riding sx on that 125. He was ripping these big whoops with a nasty mud-water hole at the end, looked so awesome.
What an amazing joke. Great addition to this topic 🙄
So based on that, I think it's fair to say Ty Davis is the worst that actually raced the premier class after winning their regional title. A bit surprising to me, I would have thought it would be one of the real early winners considering most 125MX riders of the 80's skipped the regional classes altogether. It really was a pro-am class the first few years it existed.
Thanks for the link!
I was as well. I was stoked when he got on the podium at the first east round with YOT in ‘06 after those miserable seasons in ‘04 and ‘05. He had some good races from 07-09 but it seems like he always got hurt for outdoors after 02. I remember watching an interview with big James and he was saying how they were expecting Jesseman to be his biggest competitor for ‘03.
Mike Brown... Never won anything after he moved up. Was a career 125'r. Similar to J-Mart, but J-Mart won back to back MX titles.
I don't think he won a 125sx title.
I would assume Reed's last few years, when he was barely qualifying for mains and finishing well outside the top 10, really skewed his overall average.
Two things I took from that list: Dungey truly was a monster, and I had no idea Pichon raced that many big bike races in the US.
Most of the guys that win 250sx and move up and dont do good only win 250sx after the fast guys move up and there just the next best guy. But then there forced up to 450s with the same guys they got beat in 250s and its back to mid pack again. Im sure there has been a few exceptions.
Unpopular opinion incoming...but these 3 underperformed on 450's.
3 riders who threw away their talent with crashes and/or bad life choices.
1. James Stewart
2. Travis Pastrana
3. Jason Lawrence
Stew only has 2 big bike SX championships. Never learned to dial it down from "win a race" to "win a championship". The ultimate checkers or wreckers guy. Unbelievable talent, unbelievable that he was so dominant on the smaller bike and couldn't convert it into a string of big bike championships.
That's not true about James. His problem was that he wasn't as good as the Ryans.
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