Slaw
Through four motos of the 250 Pro Motocross Championship, reigning champion Haiden Deegan looked unstoppable. He started the season with four dominating moto wins and whispers of a potential 22-0 season began to circulate.
That all came to a halt in the first moto Saturday at Thunder Valley, Round 3 of the championship.
Chance Hymas grabbed the early lead, while Deegan began methodically chipping away at a five-second gap. He closed it to under two seconds and appeared poised to make a late-race charge—until mechanical issues struck. At over 6,000 feet of elevation, Thunder Valley is notoriously hard on engines, especially 250s, and Deegan’s bike clearly started to suffer.
Late in the race, his mechanic Brent Duffe was seen holding a message on the pit board: “Off the clutch. Save the bike.” Deegan wisely backed off, allowing Hymas to pull away for a dominant 45-second win—snapping Deegan’s moto win streak in the process.
Between motos, the team swapped engines. But in the second race, while again chasing Hymas, Deegan lost the front end, went down and Hymas went 1-1 on the day, claiming his first overall win of the season. While Deegan’s win streak ended, he still salvaged critical points and exits Round 3 with a 25-point lead over Jo Shimoda in the championship standings.
In the post-race press conference, Deegan addressed the mechanical issues:
“I’m not sure,” he said. “They [team] said at first, ‘It’s on you,’ then they’re like, ‘It’s not on you.’ So, I don’t know what happened, I just lost all my power. Is what it is. And that second moto, I ended up tipping it over. But whatever, 2-2 on the day, so not bad. And we doubled the points.
“Today was pretty good for what it could have been in that first moto with my bike almost blowing up,” he added. “Honestly, it’s a consistent day and I doubled my points gap. A lot of these guys threw away their first rounds, and that’s where I’m good: I’m just consistent. And that’s why I win these championships. So, yeah, I just want to stay consistent throughout the year and if it’s a 2-2 then we’ll take it, but we want to be winning. We’ll go back to work this week and hopefully come out on top next week.”
Deegan’s flawless run may be over, but his message is clear: he’s playing the long game in his quest for back-to-back titles.
Images: octopi.media / Pit board: Screenshot
