Here’s quick look through the field in GTS, which breaks off to become its own race for Pirelli World Challenge this year after previously being part of the GT races:
Blackdog Speed Shop: Michael Cooper (No. 10) replaces four-time series champion Lawson Aschenbach, who has won the last two GTS titles. Cooper should win races and the former TC champion is a great example of advancing within PWC’s classes. Teammate Tony Gaples (No. 11) should be consistent as ever in banking top-10 finishes. Team upgrades to new Camaro Z/28.R from the previous spec.
BestIT Racing: Older Camaros here but like Blackdog there’s a title contender in the lineup. Andy Lee (No. 20) seeks return to winning after challenging 2014, and must be considered one of the favorites. Teammate Geoff Reeves (No. 40) returns for a second season and looks to continue gaining experience.
Skullcandy Team Nissan: A sleeper entry in Vesko Kozarov (No. 23) in the Nissan 370Z. Might not be the outright fastest but could sneak a podium or two along the way.
LG Motorsports: Lou Gigliotti (No. 28) may fare better in the GTS ranks than in GT in his Aston Martin Vantage GT4. Series veteran returns after a brief hiatus.
Phoenix American Motorsports: One of two multicar operations running Ford Mustang Boss 302s, and new to PWC, this is a team that should win races, with Andrew Aquilante (No. 32) the most likely win and title contender. Teammates are Preston Calvert (No. 35), who will also run GT Cup presented by MOMO, and Kurt Rezzetano (No. 37).
Capaldi Racing: A solid lineup of Ford Mustang Boss 302s. Series veteran Nick Esayian (No. 34) moves teams and cars after winning at Miller last year in a TRG-AMR Aston Martin Vantage GT4. Jack Roush Jr. (No. 60) runs under this banner this year and should bank his first win. Rookie Dan Martinson (No. 33) in his Gear Tie Racing Ford has one of the best liveries in the field, and will look to bank laps and top-10 results, at least initially.
Kinetic Motorsports/Kia Racing: Mark Wilkins (No. 38) was desperately unlucky to have not won last year’s title and the popular Canadian would be a popular champ this year. Ben Clucas (No. 36) replaces Nic Jonsson and while relatively unknown in North America, could impress. Kia looks to defend its Manufacturer’s Championship with the pair of venerable Kia Optima turbos.
Rehagen Racing/Picture Cars East: Dean Martin (No. 50) was a multiple race winner last year, but needed three different cars to survive a roller-coaster year. He’s back again as a likely race winner and possible title contender in his Ford Mustang Boss 302.
Klenin Performance Racing: Veteran Mark Klenin (No. 62) branches out on his own in an Aston Martin Vantage GT4. Generally exciting to watch on starts, Klenin will seek a top-10 points finish this year.
GTSport Racing: The Goldcrest Motorsports-run team is expected to be a title contender. Ageless Jack Baldwin (No. 73) remains one of the series’ fastest drivers with Buz McCall (No. 72) adding support as usual. Along with Wilkins, Baldwin is one of GTS’ two preseason title favorites.
TRG-AMR North America: Neither Max Riddle (No. 07) nor Derek DeBoer (No. 09) is high on PWC experience, but they should improve over the course of the year.
GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing: Jon Fogarty (No. 99) and the team will miss the season-opening races and will develop the Hyundai Genesis coupe for later in the year. When they race, they will play spoiler.
A.N. Other Motorsports: GTS is a home to a number of part-time entries who will appear sporadically throughout the year. Look out for more Mustangs, Camaros, Astons and the occasional Porsche or BMW along the way to add to the depth of the field.
For the fifth time in 10 rounds of the 2023 Monster Energy Supercross season, the three riders at the top of the championship standings shared a podium and while those points tell one story, the NBC SuperMotocross Power Rankings after Detroit tell a slightly different tale.Cooper Webb is peaking at the right time. – Feld Motor Sports
Chase Sexton has been all but perfect during the past 45 days with podium finishes in each of his heats and Triple Crown features. His only stumble during this period was a 10th-place finish in the Indianapolis Main. Last week, Sexton was perfect with wins in both his heat and the feature, although he needed a little help from an Aaron Plessinger mistake to take the top spot on the podium at the end of the night.
Cooper Webb finished fifth at Houston and was beginning to worry ever so slightly about his position in the points. Prior to the race in Tampa, he told NBC Sports that it was time to win and like Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield fence, Webb went out and captured it. Following that race, Webb has swept the podium and earned the red plate two weeks ago in Indianapolis. At Detroit, he added two more points on Eli Tomac as the season begins to wind down.
Tomac struggled with a stiff neck at Indianapolis and after a modest third-place showing in Detroit, he revealed he was still suffering a little. Webb and Sexton have been able to close the gap on Tomac in the past 45 days, but one of the main reasons he is so close in the points was a pair of wins that started the year. Seattle is going to be important for the defending champion because Tomac cannot afford to lose any more momentum with seven rounds remaining.
It appeared Jason Anderson was turning things around. He earned his fifth heat win at Detroit, which was also his sixth consecutive race (including features) in which he scored a top-five. A fall in the Detroit Main dropped him a lap off the pace and sent him home with a season-worst finish of ninth, causing a ripple effect in the SuperMotocross Power Rankings.
Justin Barcia was a huge part of the show last week in Detroit. He swapped positions with both Webb and Tomac in the middle stage of the race, which allowed Sexton to close the gap. Barcia finished fourth in that race to earn his third consecutive top-five. He’s been outside the top 10 only once in the first 10 rounds.
Adam Cianciarulo had a great start to the Main. He led a couple of laps before losing a lap and slipping back to eighth in the final rundown. That run was strong enough to elevate him three positions in the SuperMotocross Power Rankings after Detroit.
The NBC SuperMotocross Power Rankings look at the past 90 days in the 250 class in order to have a balanced comparison between the East and West divisions and Hunter Lawrence has been all but perfect this year. At Detroit, he earned his fifth win of the season and kept alive a streak of podium finishes in six rounds. He tied his brother Jett Lawrence with 10 250 wins one week before the West riders take to the track for back-to-back races at Seattle, Washington and Glendale, Arizona.
Nate Thrasher is settling into a comfortable role as ‘best in class’. – Feld Motor Sports
The Lawrence brothers are dominating the points in each of their respective divisions, which means the remainder of the field is battling to be best in class.
In the East, that rider is Nate Thrasher, who beat Hunter in a head-to-head matchup in their heat only to finish second in the main when the majority of points were awarded. Thrasher seems to have accepted his position in the championship standings, but that doesn’t mean he won’t keep trying for wins.
Haiden Deegan showed a lot of aggression in his heat last week. He threw a couple of block passes at his teammate Jordon Smith and set up a series of events that kept Smith from making the big show while Deegan settled into second in the preliminary. Deegan was unconcerned about how he raced his teammate and would not let a little controversy keep him from celebrating his second career podium in Detroit.
Jeremy Martin just keeps clicking off solid results. He won his heat last week by making a pass on Deegan and Smith while they were in the heat of their battle. Martin finished fourth in the Main, which means he continues to have only one finish worse than sixth in any of the features or mains.
Smith fell one position in the points standings, but the damage was even worse in SuperMotocross Power Rankings after Detroit. Crash damage in his heat contributed to a last-place finish in that race, for which he earned minimal points. He was not able to advance from the Last Chance Qualifier after stalling his bike in heavy traffic.
250 Rankings
This
Week
Rider
Power
Avg.
Last
Week
Diff.
1.
Hunter Lawrence – E
[5 Main, 5 Heat wins]
90.43
1
0
2.
Jett Lawrence – W
[3 Main, 3 Heat wins]
90.30
2
0
3.
Nate Thrasher – E
[1 Main, 3 Heat wins]
84.00
5
2
4.
Cameron McAdoo – W
[1 Heat win]
79.80
9
5
5.
Haiden Deegan – E
[1 Heat win]
78.21
7
2
6.
Jeremy Martin – E
[2 Heat wins]
78.00
8
2
7.
Jordon Smith – E
[3 Heat Wins]
76.77
4
-3
8.
Levi Kitchen – W
[1 Main]
75.30
3
-5
9.
Mitchell Oldenburg – W
75.20
11
2
10.
RJ Hampshire – W
[4 Heat wins]
74.50
17
7
11.
Max Anstie – E
74.43
6
-5
12.
Tom Vialle – E
72.07
12
0
13.
Max Vohland – W
71.56
10
-3
14.
Stilez Robertson – W
[1 Heat win]
69.22
14
0
15.
Chris Blose – E
67.43
18
3
16.
Chance Hymas – E
67.10
15
-1
17.
Enzo Lopes – W
66.00
20
3
18.
Michael Mosiman – E
65.80
16
-2
19.
Pierce Brown – W
65.78
13
-6
20.
Phil Nicoletti – W
59.25
21
1
* The NBC Power Rankings assign 100 points to a Main event winner and 90 points for each Heat and Triple Crown win, (Triple Crown wins are included with heat wins below the rider’s name). The points decrement by a percentage equal to the number of riders in the field until the last place rider in each event receives five points. The Power Ranking is the average of these percentage points over the past 45 days for the 450 class and last 90 days for 250s (because of the split nature of their season).
