Ryder Malinoski is your 2026 Loretta Lynn’s 250 Pro Sport Champion and somehow, he managed to do it in the most Ryder Malinoski way possible.

Nothing easy. Nothing boring. Just put your head down, charge through the field, and absolutely refuse to quit.

After hitting the deck off the start of Moto 3, Malinoski found himself buried in the pack with a championship hanging in the balance. From there, he did what we’ve watched him do time and time again: went to work.

He charged all the way back to third, giving him 1-2-3 moto scores and the 250 Pro Sport overall championship.

It’s impressive for anyone to throw their leg over a motorcycle in this class, let alone win it. But what makes Malinoski’s story even crazier is that he’s only been riding motorcycles since the COVID outbreak.

Yes, you read that correctly.

While most of the kids he’s racing against have been twisting throttles since they could barely walk, Ryder got a late start by motocross standards. Yet here we are, just a few years later, and he’s a Loretta Lynn’s champion with a professional career staring him directly in the face.

If you want the full story of how we got here, you can read my previous interview with Malinoski, by clicking here.

Loretta’s Was Another Box to Check

For Malinoski, a Loretta Lynn’s championship feels less like the final destination and more like another stop along a trajectory that continues pointing toward his professional career.

He’s been to the Ranch twice before, in 2023 and 2024, with a previous best finish of third overall. I caught up with him just before Loretta’s this year to talk about what he’s been doing, what he wanted out of the week, and where this whole thing is headed.

The short answer?

Racing. Lots and lots of racing.

Malinoski has spent the summer north of the border competing in Canada’s Triple Crown Series with MX101 Yamaha, and he hasn’t exactly been sightseeing.

He’s been crushing it in the 250 Pro class.

Through the season, Malinoski has collected three overall wins, five podium finishes and hasn’t finished outside the top five. Heading into the final round next Saturday at Walton Raceway, he sits just three points behind Dylan Rempel in the championship.

And there’s a reason Malinoski wants as many gate drops as he can possibly get.

His abbreviated racing career means he simply doesn’t have the years of experience that many of the riders around him do. Some of these kids have been racing their entire lives. Malinoski continues making up for lost time.

You can practice starts. You can do motos. You can pound laps until your hands look like hamburger.

But you can’t completely recreate racing.

“There’s nothing that can simulate racing, so I need to race as much as possible,” Malinoski told me.

That philosophy has taken him to Canada, Loretta’s, SMX Next and basically anywhere else someone is willing to drop a gate in front of him.

And you have to think all those gate drops helped prepare him for exactly what happened in Moto 3.

When everything went sideways off the start, there was no panic. There was just work to do.

One Championship Gone, Another One Won

Malinoski’s week at Loretta’s wasn’t perfect.

A DNF in Moto 1 of Open Pro Sport essentially crushed his championship hopes in that class before the first moto was even over.

But 250 Pro Sport was a different story.

Ryder won Moto 1, finished second in Moto 2, and then entered Moto 3 with everything still on the table.

Then he hit the ground.

Because of course he did.

Apparently just riding around comfortably inside the championship window would have been far too easy.

Instead, Malinoski had to charge through the pack with the title hanging in the balance. He clawed his way back to third, and when the checkered flag flew, his 1-2-3 scores were enough to crown him the 2026 Loretta Lynn’s 250 Pro Sport Champion.

That’s Ryder Malinoski in a nutshell.

There might be riders with more experience. There might be riders with prettier paths to the front.

But good luck finding one with more fight.

Now It’s Time to Go Pro

Winning 250 Pro Sport on his ClubMX Yamaha should give Malinoski plenty of confidence as he heads back north to rejoin MX101 and try to close out the Canadian championship at Walton.

Then things get even more interesting.

Ryder plans to line up for Pro Motocross at Ironman and Budds Creek with ClubMX, getting his first taste of what life is going to look like very soon.

There’s also another opportunity sitting on the table.

The top five eligible finishers from 250 Pro Sport and 250 B at Loretta’s earn invitations into the SMX Next World All-Stars program. I’ll dive deeper into that tomorrow, but Malinoski’s championship puts him firmly in that conversation, and we’ll have to see if he decides to line up.

Beyond that, the future is already taking shape.

Malinoski has a professional contract locked in with ClubMX for 2027 and plans to contest the full professional season. We don’t know which Supercross coast he’ll line up on yet, but we do know this: 2027 is going to be a very exciting year for both ClubMX and Ryder Malinoski.

Because this kid is an incredible athlete, and maybe more importantly, there just doesn’t seem to be any quit in him.

Even standing on the Loretta’s podium after winning 250 Pro Sport, Malinoski summed himself up about as perfectly as anyone could.

“I’ll never quit. I’ll never give up.”

That isn’t some new championship-winning soundbite, either.

After his massive crash racing SMX Next Supercross, Ryder told me something that has stuck with me ever since:

“You’ve got to be willing to die for this.”

Extreme? Absolutely.

But spend any amount of time around Ryder Malinoski and you understand what he means. This kid is all-in.

He started riding motorcycles during COVID. A few years later, he’s winning 250 Pro Sport at Loretta Lynn’s, fighting for a Canadian professional championship, preparing for his Pro Motocross debut and already holding a professional contract for 2027.

And when his championship came down to Moto 3 at Loretta’s?

He hit the ground, got back up and charged all the way to third.

Because apparently Ryder Malinoski doesn’t know how to do anything the easy way.

Brandon Haas, and the team at Club MX might have figured out how to capture lightning in a bottle.

Now they just have to hold onto it.