{"id":131965,"date":"2026-01-13T19:06:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T19:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/131965\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T19:06:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T19:06:06","slug":"ktms-tomac-finishes-first-in-the-450mx-at-the-smx-opener-in-anaheim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/131965\/","title":{"rendered":"KTM’s Tomac finishes first in the 450MX at the SMX opener in Anaheim"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2026 Monster Energy SMX World Championship<\/a> kicked off Friday, Jan. 9, to a sold-out crowd inside Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California, for the opening round of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship<\/p>\n

\"SMX<\/a>A capacity crowd was on hand to watch the 2026 SMX World Championship kick\u00a0off from Southern California\u2019s Angel Stadium. (Photos: SMX League)<\/p>\n

In the 450MX Class main event, 33-year-old KTM<\/a> Factory Racing rider Eli Tomac finished first, 1.4 seconds ahead of second-place finisher, Suzuki\u2019s Ken Roczen. The win was Tomac\u2019s 54th of his career, and his KTM teammate, Jorge Prado, finished third.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The 450SMX Class podium finishers, from left, Ken Roczen, Eli Tomac, and Jorge Prado. <\/p>\n

In the Western Divisional 250SMX Class, Yamaha\u2019s Max Anstie became the oldest winner in the history of the smaller displacement at 32 years, 8 months, and 16 days of age. The 7.5-second victory was the fourth SMX win of his career. Honda\u2019s Chance Hymas finished in second, and Husqvarna\u2019s Ryder DiFrancesco finished third.<\/p>\n

The second race of the SMX World Championship will be at San Diego\u2019s Snapdragon Stadium on Jan. 17. Coverage on Peacock<\/a> will begin at 1 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing\u2019s Max Anstie became the oldest athlete in the history of the 250SMX Class with a victory to open the Western Division Championship.<\/p>\n

SMX playoffs schedule announced<\/p>\n

The 2026 SMX World Championship playoffs will take place at the following stadiums: Historic Crew Stadium in Columbus, Ohio, on Sept. 12; Dignity Health Sports Park in Los Angeles on Sept. 19; and Thunder Ridge Nature Arena in Ridgedale, Missouri, on Sept. 26.<\/p>\n

The playoffs and final will feature the top 20 in Supercross and Pro Motocross point leaders competing in a playoff round. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 Monster Energy SMX World Championship kicked off Friday, Jan. 9, to a sold-out crowd inside Angel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,23622,67618,66474,9027,67619,14709,67620],"class_list":{"0":"post-131965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-honda","12":"tag-husqvarana","13":"tag-ktm","14":"tag-racing","15":"tag-smx-world-championship","16":"tag-suzuki","17":"tag-yamaha"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}