ARD's 2022 AMA Supercross Season Guide

2022 AMA SX Season Guide

AMA Supercross is used to kicking off the racing season every new calendar year, getting things started with a 5-6 week west coast swing giving the modern day racing fan at least something to watch before the sport goes full boar.

That’s how I got into it at least, and while we’ll have a plethora of racing to watch through the colder months to start 2022, this Supercross season promises to be wild in more ways than one.

We break down the new year here, our 2022 AMA Supercross Preview:

The storylines

Cooper Webb switches trainer

The biggest story of the Supercross off-season came in the announcement of reigning series champion Cooper Webb moving to a different training program ahead of the 2022 season.

Formerly with Aldon Baker, Webb moved to training with the 83 Compound this season – a massive change when noting that Baker has trained 16 of the past 21 years’ champions in the series.

“Training’s a little different this year,” Webb told NBC during the annual preview show. “I just felt like I needed a change. It was getting to the point where I didn’t know if I wanted to ride anymore, to be honest. I just wanted to kind of customize my whole program a little bit and have some outsider professionals on nutrition, the strength, the cardio.”

He isn’t the first rider to leave Baker’s program that has produced that success and he won’t be the last.

Baker is known to be a tough coach and Webb opted to make a move.

“So now the ball is in his court, and I’m sure he wants to prove me wrong,” Baker told NBC. “I’m not 100 percent sure how things are going to go. There’s nothing like wanting to show, ‘Hey I was right,’ and he’s one of those guys that can do it. We’ll see how he does.”

Now, Baker’s training a group of riders that haven’t yet secured their first AMA Supercross race win.

Room for new names

Winning is everything in not only Supercross, but racing overall – and if the field coming into 2022 lacks anything, it’s only that. Only seven riders in the field have won races with the series.

The big three – Tomac, Roczen and Webb – have won 30 of the past 34 races in the series. Some might call that a lack of parity, but with how fast things change in the sport in the modern era, it speaks to the talent that each of them have.

Active rider career wins list
Eli Tomac – 37
Ken Roczen – 19
Cooper Webb – 19
Marvin Musquin – 9
Jason Anderson – 7
Justin Barcia – 4
Justin Brayton – 1

The last time the sport saw a first-time winner was when Zach Osborne won the final race of the 2020 season and he’s since retired. Don’t be surprised to see some new names make moves this year.

The pressure with the former top prospects

This year’s Supercross field boasts two riders who each have two 250cc championships to their names in Dylan Ferrandis and Chase Sexton.

Neither have a win under their belt yet, however, and it’s not outlandish to say that either of them could have a breakout season. Sexton was leading races last year on multiple occasions but accidents and fatigue set in hard in this series.

With Ferrandis riding alongside Tomac and Sexton learning from Roczen, the pair is in a good spot to use their knowledge to get to victory lane.

New faces in new places

There may not be a bigger identity change this year than Eli Tomac leaving Kawasaki to ride at Star Racing Yamaha in 2022.

Tomac earned his first and only career championship with Kawasaki and thinks the switch to the blue crew is what he needs to capture his second.

On top of it, Aaron Plessinger left the same Yamaha team to come to the Red Bull KTM stable and 2018 series champion Jason Anderson will head to Kawasaki.

It’s a lot of names to shuffle in the same off-season and that creates a bigger chance at any of these three having one of their best (or worst) years in recent memory.

Roczen’s early success

Ken Roczen is routinely an elite rider early in the AMA Supercross season. He started last season with a pair of runner-up finishes in the first three races, before going out and winning three in a row after that.

In the trio of races after that, Roczen was off of the podium, allowing Webb to catch up and pass Roczen in the points race, eventually in route to a title.

If the early season success stays like we’ve seen from Roczen, can he keep it going into the end of the year?

The questions are aplenty, but the season is here. We’ll see how it all shakes out starting with Anaheim 1 on Saturday (9:00 p.m. CT CNBC).

The Roster

Red Bull KTM
1 | Cooper Webb – 2x AMA SX champion ’19 & ’21
7 | Aaron Plessinger – ’18 250 West champion
25 | Marvin Musquin – ’15 250 East champion

Monster Energy Star Racing Yamaha
3 | Eli Tomac – 1x AMA SX champion ’20
14 | Dylan Ferrandis – ’19 & ’20 250 West champion

HRC Honda
94 | Ken Roczen – 19x SX race winner/’13 250 West champion
23 | Chase Sexton – ’19 & ’20 250 East champion

Monster Energy Kawasaki
9 | Adam Cianciarulo – 11 250 SX race wins
21 | Jason Anderson – 1x AMA SX champion ’18

Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull GasGas
51 | Justin Barcia – 4 AMA SX race wins

Rockstar Husqvarna
15 | Dean Wilson – 8 250 SX race wins
27 | Malcolm Stewart – 3 250 SX race wins

Motoconcepts/Smartop Honda
10 | Justin Brayton – 1 AMA SX race win
54 | Mitchell Oldenburg (250SX deal & opposite 450 races)

Rocky Mountain KTM 450
12 | Shane McElrath – 9 250 SX race wins
17 | Joey Savatgy – 5 250 SX race wins
34 | Max Antsie

Team PRMX Kawasaki
46 | Justin Hill – Out of retirement to join PRMX

Twisted Tea HEP Suzuki
19 | Justin Bogle
41 | Brandon Hartranft
722 | Adam Enticknap

Club MX Yamaha
26 | Alex Martin
715 | Phil Nicoletti