Okay that’s a wrap on the 2026 SMX season. Goes by pretty quick, right? We’re into year four of this new three-race “playoffs” (where no one gets eliminated) and in my opinion there’s probably been more misses than hits with this thing but at least 2026 ended on somewhat of a good note with the first-ever event held at the Thunder Ridge arena somewhere near the Ozark Mountains.
After the pretty much disastrous Columbus and L.A. rounds where no one was really happy with the venues or the racing, the new venue was cool, the track was back to being a true SMX track and the vibes were high.
Was the racing great? No, it wasn’t, as the track didn’t offer enough passing opportunities, it was really fast while you were turning and everything led you to the main line. The 180’s before and after the triple offered the best spots to try and get by. Other than that, it was going to be very tough to make a move.
I thought the track looked cool on Friday and fun to ride. Then it turned out not fun to race, due to the passing. Not much happened out there on Saturday, I hope the “vibes” from the cool venue was enough to satisfy the fans because there’s a four-year contract to race SMX there. Maybe they can improve the track next year as far as passing is concerned?
You know, it says something that many of the racers just didn’t care about the money won in this series. A guy like Garrett Marchbanks won 125K and after the last round, used his time with me in post-race interview to bag on the series. Hunter Lawrence won 328K all-in and told me doesn’t care about the money (in contrast that’s just a bit shy of two 450SX wins for Hunter) and many others stated that the money is overcome by how long the season is at this point. If you look at the payout, after the top two guys it does drop off pretty fast and Lawrence, who finished third, raced three races for, as I said, the equivalent to two 450SX wins. So, you can kind of understand it from the highly-paid factory riders position.