An accident while leading in the final race of the Arlington Monster Energy Supercross race kept Eli Tomac from taking the overall win, but top-fives in two of the races keeps him atop NBC Sports’ SuperMotocross Power Rankings by a narrow margin of less than a tenth of a point. A few cracks are beginning to show, but Tomac makes his sixth appearance at the top of the charts with a worst overall result of sixth at Anaheim 2 and an average finish of 2.6 in the first seven rounds.
In Arlington, Tomac got off to a solid start by winning the first feature. Race 2 was not as productive with a fourth-place finish, but Tomac was in position to take the overall win until he crashed on the back side of the tunnel jump and fell outside the top three. Having lost his momentum, Tomac continued to slide backward and finished sixth. That was enough to secure a third-place position overall and retain his Power Rankings lead, however.
Jason Anderson got off to a tough start in Arlington. He crashed early in Race 1 and was only able to climb to eighth when the checkers waved over the first feature. He recovered in Race 2 to win that feature and ended the night with another podium, but the damage was done and he finished fourth when the points were tallied for the three races. In the past 45 days, Anderson has finished worse that fifth three times in 16 races and that consistency has served him well.
Now that the floodgates have opened, Cooper Webb is closing in on Tomac. Webb’s overall victory in the Arlington Triple Crown closed the gap to the leader to two points, which means he has his fate in his own hands. A win in Daytona this week would give him the red plate. The SuperMotocross Power Rankings after Arlington look not only at the featured results, but also the heats and individual races that make up the weekend and a second-place finish in the second main also earned a lot of percentage points for Webb.
MORE: Cooper Webb closes to within two points of Eli Tomac
Chase Sexton has not been mistake-free in the past several races, but he tends to have a large enough advantage over fourth-place that he minimizes the points damage. Sexton has swept the podium in his last 13 heats, mains and overall results and his worst performance, which saw him finish 20th in a preliminary race in San Diego, is about to age out of the 45-day formula.
Ken Roczen continues to hang around near the front of the pack. In Arlington, he finished 2-6-4 in the three races and rounded out the top five. That is enough to keep him in the top five in the SuperMotocross Power Rankings for another week. Better still, his fifth-place finish last week erased the memory of Roczen’s only finish outside the top 10 earned two weeks ago in Oakland.
Christian Craig has not found the transition to a 450 bike to be painless, but he is riding consistently enough to gain experience. In the past 45 days, he has finished in the top 10 in 13 of 16 races, and while only a handful of those were top-fives, he moved up two positions this week from 13th to 11th.
450 Rankings
| This Week |
Rider | Power Avg. |
Last Week |
Diff. |
| 1. | Eli Tomac [4 Main; 5 Heat Wins] |
84.67 | 1 | 0 |
| 2. | Jason Anderson [4 Main Wins] |
84.58 | 2 | 0 |
| 3. | Cooper Webb [2 Main; 1 Heat Wins] |
82.42 | 4 | 1 |
| 4. | Chase Sexton [1 Main Win; 4 Heat Wins] |
82.33 | 3 | -1 |
| 5. | Ken Roczen [1 Heat Win] |
79.33 | 5 | 0 |
| 6. | Aaron Plessinger | 75.83 | 6 | 0 |
| 7. | Justin Barcia | 73.42 | 8 | 1 |
| 8. | Dylan Ferrandis | 68.00 | 7 | -1 |
| 9. | Justin Cooper | 66.50 | 9 | 0 |
| 10. | Adam Cianciarulo | 65.00 | 10 | 0 |
| 11. | Christian Craig | 62.75 | 13 | 2 |
| 12. | Joey Savatgy | 61.58 | 12 | 0 |
| 13. | Colt Nichols | 56.25 | 15 | 2 |
| 14. | Dean Wilson | 50.50 | 16 | 2 |
| 15. | Justin Hill | 42.73 | 18 | 3 |
| 16. | Josh Hill | 41.33 | 25 | 9 |
| 17. | Shane McElrath | 38.58 | 19 | 2 |
| 18. | Benny Bloss | 34.80 | 28 | 10 |
| 19. | Fredrik Noren | 33.60 | 20 | 1 |
| 20. | Kyle Chisholm | 31.82 | 29 | 9 |
Here’s your updated points standings after round 7️⃣ of @MonsterEnergy Supercross 📋#SupercrossLIVE #SuperMotocross pic.twitter.com/dGHnHxkuV5
— Supercross LIVE! (@SupercrossLIVE) February 27, 2023
Championships are won on a rider’s bad days. Hunter Lawrence was involved in a scary crash in the first turn of the final race. He ran out of real estate and crashed in heavy traffic. When Max Anstie ran into his bike and catapulted over the handlebars, Lawrence was trapped underneath both bikes for a few seconds and he dropped to the back of the pack. Lawrence climbed to sixth in that race, which relegated him to third overall.
In the tight battle with his brother Jett Lawrence, Hunter lost the overall 250 SuperMotocross Power Rankings lead after Arlington, but he maintains a significant advantage over Nate Thrasher as the best in the East division.
While he failed to win an individual moto, Thrasher earned his first overall win of 2023. Finishing 2-2-3 in the Triple Crown, he vaulted up the chart by five positions to secure third in the combined rankings. Adding to his feat was the fact that he was riding with an injured knee. If he is not at 100 percent this weekend in Daytona, the tough hybrid track is going to prove to be very challenging.
Finishing third in Race 1 and fourth in Race 2, Anstie had a shot at earning his third podium in three 250 East rounds until he crashed with Lawrence in the final feature. He remounted and finished ninth in that race, which cost him a position in the Power Rankings.
Jordon Smith won the second feature last week and might have caught his teammate Thrasher if not for a bobble in the whoops during the closing laps in Arlington. That victory and top-fives in the other two races moved him up four spots in the rankings, but a bad finish in Tampa has him only sixth in the 250 East championship standings.
Tom Vialle has been getting progressively better with each passing week. He narrowly missed the top five in Houston and Tampa with results of seventh and sixth. In Arlington, his Triple Crown results of 5-9-2 were good enough for fourth overall. The Daytona Supercross track has elements similar to his more familiar motocross discipline and Vialle could improve by a position or two after this weekend.
250 Rankings
| This Week |
Driver | Power Avg. |
Last Week |
Diff. |
| 1. | Jett Lawrence – W [3 Main; 3 Heat Wins] |
89.63 | 2 | 1 |
| 2. | Hunter Lawrence – E [2 Main; 3 Heat Wins] |
87.50 | 1 | -1 |
| 3. | Nate Thrasher – E [1 Main; 1 Heat Win] |
82.63 | 8 | 5 |
| 4. | Max Anstie – E | 80.38 | 3 | -1 |
| 5. | Jordon Smith – E [2 Heat Wins] |
80.00 | 9 | 4 |
| 6. | Cameron McAdoo – W [1 Heat Win] |
77.13 | 7 | 1 |
| 7. | Tom Vialle – E | 76.88 | 6 | -1 |
| 8. | Levi Kitchen – W [1 Main Win] |
75.38 | 11 | 3 |
| 9. | Jeremy Martin – E [1 Heat Win] |
74.88 | 5 | -4 |
| 10. | Mitchell Oldenburg – W | 74.25 | 13 | 3 |
| 11. | Haiden Deegan – E [1 Heat Win] |
74.00 | 4 | -7 |
| 12. | Pierce Brown – W | 73.38 | 14 | 2 |
| 13. | Michael Mosiman – E | 71.50 | 12 | -1 |
| 14. | Stilez Robertson – W [1 Heat Win] |
70.14 | 15 | 1 |
| 15. | RJ Hampshire – W [4 Heat Wins] |
70.00 | 16 | 1 |
| 16. | Max Vohland – W | 68.71 | 17 | 1 |
| 17. | Chance Hymas – E | 64.13 | 9 | -8 |
| 18. | Enzo Lopes – W | 62.13 | 18 | 0 |
| 19. | Chris Blose – E | 59.63 | 19 | 0 |
| 20. | Derek Kelley – W | 57.50 | 19 | -1 |
| 20. | Robbie Wageman – W | 57.50 | 19 | -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.
POWER RANKINGS AFTER WEEK 6 AT OAKLAND: Perfect night keeps Eli Tomac first
POWER RANKINGS AFTER WEEK 5 AT TAMPA: Chase Sexton, Cooper Webb close in
POWER RANKINGS AFTER WEEK 4 AT HOUSTON: Tomac rebounds from A2 crash, retakes lead
POWER RANKINGS AFTER WEEK 3 AT ANAHEIM 2: Consistency makes Ken Roczen king
POWER RANKINGS AFTER WEEK 2 AT SAN DIEGO: Roczen moves up, Sexton falls
POWER RANKINGS AFTER WEEK 1 AT ANAHEIM 1: Tomac, Jett Lawrence gain an early advantage
