Slaw
Following a breakout campaign at the 2025 Loretta Lynn Amateur National Motocross Championship, Deacon Denno was a hot commodity. And Triumph was there to scoop up the talented teenager, signing him to a three-year deal to transition to the pro ranks.
The Denno deal paid off for Triumph in 2026. On Saturday in Philadelphia, Denno won a muddy SMX Next Showdown to capture the SMX Next Supercross AMA National Championship–the first title for Triumph on American soil.
What’s next for Denno? A full-time move to the pro ranks, as he’ll race a full season of Pro Motocross this summer.
Denno talked about that and more after capturing the title.
Has it sunk in yet? A few minutes removed from that podium?
Denno: No, I don’t think so. But after I sleep tonight and I wake up in the morning, it’ll probably sink in then. But right now it’s just kind of surreal. Just going with the flow.
Well, of course, this is the Supercross Championship. This is worth celebrating, but you still have a season to go. But before you shift your focus to outdoors, how will you be celebrating this one?
Probably won’t celebrate much. It’s back to work on Tuesday. We’ve got a lot more ahead, and this is just the beginning, so the work doesn’t stop. I think it’ll keep on going.
Your rise to this position has been really meteoric this year. You’ve gone from a guy that was learning Supercross to now winning them. Can you take us through the process of building steps to get to this point and what you attribute most of that success to?
The whole team around me, the whole Triumph team, all my trainers, Brownie, Stylez, Ivan, everyone at Triumph. They’ve helped me out a lot and just helped me out with my development into Supercross. Obviously, I’m new to it, and they taught me a lot of good things. There’s a lot more Supercross that we don’t know about and it’s good to have those people in my corner.
They don’t do points the same way that the other season championships do, but the second-place finish in Houston and the victory at Daytona. How important was it to have those highlights leading into this race?
It was huge to have the confidence from all the other rounds, and obviously, those podiums were great, and also the win in Daytona. And then to show that I can do it in the mud and in the dry is good confidence for what’s next. It was great.
What are your plans for the summer? Are you staying in the SMX Next class or are you moving up to the pros?
I’ll be racing the full season outdoors.
What I’d like to ask you about the Triumph Amateur team manager, he definitely can’t hear you, but I know he’s in the room. What can you tell us about Stylez Robertson and his leadership abilities? This is his first season in that role.
It’s great. He’s got a lot of knowledge from all of his years in amateurs and pros and he is a good leader and good man to have in your corner. For me, he’s helped me out a lot and just keeps my head up always.
Two parts to this question. How big is the SMX Next program going to be in your future? Developing you into a rider? Hopefully to make it to the pro ranks, but also getting experience in the mud and different conditions. Some guys don’t even race in that until they turn pro, so can you elaborate on that a little bit?
I think it’s a great program for everyone that’s coming up to the pros. It gets you ready or as close as you can to be ready for the pros. Obviously, it’s a little bit different with the championship part where you don’t have a point system in the SMX Next. It’s a single race for everything. But, the mud, the dry Daytona was rutted, it’s a good program for everyone.
Have you been riding any outdoors or prepping for outdoors at all or has it been heads down on Supercross?
After Birmingham, we’ve been on outdoors for a couple weeks, and then got about a week and a half on Supercross before this, so we took some time and got a bike dialed in for outdoors and got a little base set up.
Anyone in SMX Next or in any of the other classes, the goal is always to podium, to win, maybe win that championship. But as far as some of the other goals you had for this season in terms of growth, did you feel like you checked all the boxes?
No, there are some more boxes I would like to check off. Obviously, I still got fifth in a couple of the rounds, which I didn’t want. I wanted to be on the podium at every race, so there are a couple of things I needed to work on with myself. But, overall it was a good experience: we got a good bike, got the fundamentals of Supercross, and there’s a lot more learning to do to get into the pros.
