5 Riders That Impressed at Fox Raceway

Haiden Deegan 6-2 // 2nd Overall

Deegs is carrying over his success from Supercross into the great outdoors. I can’t say that I’m surprised. Personally, I didn’t have him finishing second overall at Pala with such a deep field. Maybe I should have in hindsight. Nothing this new sensation does surprises me anymore. His turn to win races and championships is coming sooner rather than later. I know it’s only one race, but how soon until he gets his first win and overall?

RJ Hampshire 1-11 // 3rd Overall

I heard some chatter about how “RJ will have a chance at a title once he figures out his inconsistency” over the weekend. Sure, that’s been the case in the past, but believe me RJ is a different rider this year. He’s still going to send it, that’s just RJ, but he told me that he’s learned so much in the past year and grown as a rider. He firmly believes that he has a huge chance to win this Pro Motocross Championship and that was apparent with his first moto win. Obviously his second moto this week doesn’t help my argument with a “changed RJ”, but still, he crashed three times and still finished 11th. A third overall puts him in contention after the first round. I believe we will see RJ win a lot of motos this season and take this title fight to the final round with Lawrence. 

Grant Harlan 9-6 // 7th Overall

I prefaced this in my column last week on how I wouldn’t at all be surprised with Harlan finishing the day with a 5-5 at Pala. Well, I was a little off, but seventh overall will do just fine. Har Dog is stronger in the second motos and especially with five minutes left in the race. That’s his time. He earned the Top Privateer Award at Fox Raceway and he even had a “Har Dog” shoutout on the broadcast by Weege, including his own box while Chase and Jett did their battle out front. Pulling away from AC and coming within five seconds of Webb in the second moto truly shows his potential. He’s been building to get to this point and it’s been awesome getting his insight and having conversations about racing with him along the way. WE expected to be here. He’s just getting warmed up. The Har Dog Days of Summer are here. 

Jose Butron 10-8 // 8th Overall

I literally know nothing about Butron except for the fact that he raced GPs forever. I did notice that besides the MXoN finishes in his career, that he’s never actually finished inside of the top ten overall across the pond. In his first race in the USA he got an eighth overall and was inside of the top ten all day. It’s a great start to the series for him and maybe I should jump on and set sail as captain on the Butron Boat.

Jerry Robin 8-14 //11th Overall 

My pick for the biggest surprise of the weekend was Jerry Robin. He picked up a YZ450 and showed up to Fox Raceway and finished eighth in the first moto. I was more impressed by his ability to back it up in the second moto. Robin has definitely been known to throw a race away here and there in his career, but he didn’t this past weekend. This is a new era of Robin perhaps. A privateer hero for the fans to rally behind for the Summer. Look for him to continue trending up and he should be peaking by the time the series heads East. 

Main image: Yamaha