2025 AMA Pro Motocross 450 Class Preview

2025 has unfortunately been another brutal year on the injury front for the SuperMotocross Championship state. Luckily, we're now only days away from getting a slew of major 450 riders back on the gate. From Eli Tomac, the Lawrence Brothers, Jorge Prado, Jason Anderson, etc, it feels like we're in as good of a place with this class going into the Pala National, as everyone guns to take down defending Champion Chase Sexton of Red Bull KTM. With that in mind, here are some of my thoughts on four of the central title contenders in this rendition of the Great Outdoors.

Champion of the World

Jorge Prado's opening season as an SMX competitor came to a grinding halt at Anaheim 2, where he dislocated his shoulder and took himself out for the remainder of Supercross. Still, the current MXGP World Champion is one of a few major returns this weekend. A poor outing in the mud in Portugal and then a second Moto DNF in Italy made things a bit too close for comfort with Tim Gajser in the final standings, but Prado was spectacular for the vast majority of last year's GP tilt, winning a series leading 17 out of 40 Motos and then also a series leading 11 out of 20 Grand Prix.

Call it blind optimism on my part, but I'm not expecting some learning curve with these American tracks for Prado as was the case for guys like Hunter Lawrence and Tom Vialle when they first made the jump from the 'GPs. He's almost certainly been doing 100% MX prep since returning, and I love the fact that he took a trip to the ClubMX facilities to get a different look than what some of the SoCal tracks can provide. I fully expect him to thrive at places like Southwick, Unadilla, and even RedBud since he's gotten some live reps at the last two Des Nations held there.

This is a world-class Motocross racer who Kawasaki felt more than good enough to allow him to get through some SX growing pains with the idea he'd more than likely be nails in this series specifically. I'm not saying you're a fool for not making him your title pick, but it would be unwise to count Prado out.

Jett Ready for Takeoff

This weekend will be the first time ex-SX and MX Champion Jett Lawrence takes a live gate drop in nearly four months, thanks to an early February ACL tear. Of course, the last major injury he had to recover from didn't hurt him one bit, as he stormed to a second consecutive SMX crown with a reduced injury timetable compared to what Cooper Webb had with the same injury. That said, ACL injuries are still a step up from a thumb ligament injury, even if ACLs aren't as serious as they are in other sports.

The apparent difference between the last two seasons and 2025 for Jett is that he'll have Tomac to contend with in a pure outdoors setting for the first, and maybe only time, but that isn't to say Sexton, Prado, his own brother, or even Roczen in the handful of rounds he may end up doing, aren't credible enough to give him a tough time. There were more than a handful of occasions where Jett was beatable during that undefeated summer, and then all it took was a simple mistake on the opening lap at Hangtown, and that essentially had him running at less than 100% before bowing out. All of this is to say that he's probably the favorite, but by no means is he a lock for the title.

Demon Home

This, as the children would say, means something to me, man. We haven't seen Eli Tomac run a live AMA Pro Motocross National in close to two full years, and that dry spell ends in just a matter of days. In what will be his second and final tour of the Great Outdoors on a YZ450, the key right away with the No. 3 is seeing in a race setting if he's still not entirely over that fibula break in early Feburary. The opening odds for Pala have him at third best behind Jett and Chase, and he's been on the bike since at least early April, with this weekend being the planned target return, so you'd hope both for him and this championship, he's as close to 100 percent as possible.

Depending on who you are, the real concern with Tomac would be this however: We know this is more or less it for him and Yamaha, and if you recall, in 2021, he had a very mediocre start to the season on the way out of Kawasaki (9-8-11-10 in his first four Motos and it took until Millville for him to finish at least third in a Moto 1). This isn't to say he will "phone it in" because this is probably his last try at Motocross, but if you are skeptical about how things ended with Tomac and Kawasaki, you'd have some merit. Personally, I think he'll be just fine, more than fine, really. As for his future, it certainly feels like either KTM or Ducati at this point, and some of the showrunners for the latter were in Cortez, Colorado, earlier this week. Surely coincidental.

What Are the Odds Sexton Repeats?

It's not much of a stretch to say that Sexton is coming into the outdoor tilt with the most momentum in the class, even beyond serving as the defending Champion. Winning four of the final five Supercross rounds and generally being an elite outdoor rider is tough stuff to ignore, but I tend to side with Jason Thomas in the RacerX preview show in that while he's probably the initial favorite given the injury factor to others, that doesn't make him a lock here.

I genuinely don't believe pace will be an issue in relation to Jett or Eli for Chase, but we consistently saw mental mistakes two summers ago when he was racing the former, and he let more than a few great opportunities at National and Moto wins go by the wayside. Even this year in Supercross, with both of those guys out, we saw a ton of that. Suppose he can get over that mental hump of knowing he's not going to win every head-to-head matchup with Jett and not force himself into critical mistakes. In that case, he'll be in the thick of this thing from the second they start Moto 1 on Saturday. Wheter or not that means he repeats as Champion is another question, but he left Supercross in a notably better mental state than he was going into that bye week after Indianapolis. That much would give me optimism in this first stint of Nationals, with his departure from KTM being known at this juncture.

2025 450 Class AMA Pro Motocross Championship Pick: No. 3 Eli Tomac

My Team USA picks for MXoN: Eli Tomac (MX1), Chance Hymas (MX2), Chase Sexton (Open)

Main Image via KTM