450 Class
Hunter Lawrence
Hunter Lawrence will enter Southwick with the red plate for the first time since Thunder Valley. Hunter has never won a moto or overall at Southwick on a 450 but he has been trending towards it. He has a third overall in 2024 and a second overall in 2025. He has finished on the podium in all four motos there on a 450, three of those being second places. He does have experience winning there as he went 1-1 in 2021 on a 250 which was also his first career MX victory.
Hunter and Jett Lawrence have nearly been identical to begin the season. However, Hunter has the slight edge in starting position and moto finish which has proved to be the difference so far. Hunter averages a lap one position of 2.70, to Jett’s 3.70 and averages a moto finish of 1.90 to Jett’s 2.10.
Jett Lawrence
Jett Lawrence has never lost an overall at Southwick aboard a 450. It is one of five tracks he remains undefeated at in the class. He does have one small blemish, a second in moto two at Southwick is the only blip on his radar there, he has won the other five motos. He has led 85 laps there in just six motos, averaging 14.17 laps led per moto which is his second best rate behind Unadilla where he has a laps led per moto rate of 14.50.
If Jett can win his fourth overall in a row there, it would tie him with Jeff Stanton for second longest 450 MX win streak at Southwick. The longest class win streak there belongs to Ricky Carmichael who won NINE in a row. If Jett doesn’t manage to get the victory, it would be the first time he’d go three races without an overall victory in his 450 MX career.
Haiden Deegan
Haiden Deegan mastered the sands of Southwick in his last two seasons aboard a 250. He struggled in his first appearance there going 4-10 for sixth in his rookie season. Since then, he has moto scores of 1-2-1-1 with both overall victories in 2024 and 2025. He also holeshotted three of those four motos and led 51 of the 64 laps.
One of the things holding Deegan back a bit so far on a 450 are his first moto finishes. He has one podium in five first motos averaging a finish of 6.60. In the second motos, he has been much better, finishing third in four of them and fourth in the other. He averages a finish of 3.20 in the second motos which is over twice as good as his first moto average.
Jorge Prado
Jorge Prado scratched off another podium at Red Bud and will look for more of the same in the sand at Southwick. Prado is known as a good sand rider from his time in the MXGP circuit and had one of his best rides of 2025 at Southwick. He went 5-6 for fifth overall which was tied for his best finish and points haul (33) of that season. He has already earned more points than that at three of the five rounds in 2026.
Known for his immaculate starts, Prado earned both holeshots at Red Bud last week after not getting any at the first four rounds. His average lap one position is down to 6.10, fourth best in class.
R.J. Hampshire
R.J. Hampshire made a statement at Red Bud by breaking into the top five for the first time this season. He will have momentum rolling into Southwick which happens to be his best track on the circuit in terms of career average overall finish (5.25). This has been accomplished by immense consistency.
Hampshire has never finished on the podium there but has finished fourth five times in eight starts. He has a fifth, sixth, and eleventh, which was in his first appearance there, in his other three starts. His sixth last season was a career best at the time on a 450 but his worst finish at the track since 2016!
Garrett Marchbanks
After round one, Garrett Marchbanks has been the most consistent rider in the entire 450 class. His average moto finish is 5.25, fourth best in class, and his moto finish standard deviation is 1.035, best in the class. His moto finishes since round two have been 6-5-3-6-5-6-5-6.
Marchbanks’ starts have even been the most consistent in the class after round one. His lap one position of 9.50 is seventh best but his standard deviation is 1.414, best in class. No one else is below 2.00 in the 450s.
At Southwick, Marchbanks has been hot and cold. His best moto and overall finish there came in 2023 when he went 10-5 for fifth overall in the 450 class.
250 Class
Jo Shimoda
Jo Shimoda will rep the red plate for the first time in his Pro Motocross career at Southwick. It’s a track where has had a lot of success albeit without an overall victory. Shimoda has two moto wins there and has finished on the podium in four of his five visits. The only time he didn’t podium was just last season when he went 10-2 for fifth. The four podiums he has are tied for his most at one venue.
Shimoda’s 3.00 average overall at Southwick is his best among all tracks on the circuit. His first motos have hurt him there though. He has a moto one average of 6.00 compared to an average of 2.20 in moto two.
Shimoda is one podium away from tying Steve Lamson for most Lites podiums at Southwick with five. He is also one podium away from tying Ryan Villopoto and Johnny O’Mara with 31 career Lites MX podiums.
Cole Davies
Cole Davies was the first rider in 2026 to secure back to back overall victories in the 250 MX class, doing so at Red Bud. He has gone 1-1-1-2 in the last four motos and has seen his 24 point points deficit shaved down to four over the last two rounds. He has also finished on the pole position at the last three rounds.
Davies has never raced Southwick as a professional so there aren’t any venue specific stats to dissect for him. The winner of Southwick goes onto win the championship in the Lites class 56.41% of the time. Since 2012, the percentage is boosted up to 72.73%.
Levi Kitchen
Levi Kitchen enters Southwick nine points off the points lead of Jo Shimoda. Kitchen has had solid results at Southwick in the past but has not yet earned an overall victory. He has never finished outside the top ten overall or in a moto but he has just one overall podium there in four starts. That one podium came last season when he went 2-4 for third place. His 40 points he earned then are his best haul from Southwick.
Kitchen is sitting on 16 career podiums and is one away from tying Broc Hepler with 17. He is one moto podium away from 31 which would tie him with Ken Roczen in the class leaderboards.
Ryder DiFrancesceo
Ryder DiFrancesco is in the midst of his best season ever in SX and MX. Coming off his first career podium at Red Bud, he will be looking to continue surging forward at Southwick and his prior results offer room for more improvement. DiFrancesco has never finished in the top ten overall there and has one top ten moto finish, a tenth. It will be a matter of unstoppable force vs immovable object as he has finished in the top ten in eight of the ten motos this season including seven in a row.
DiFrancesco’s improvement has been nearly best in class in 2026. He averaged an overall of 11.71 before 2026, and so far this season, he is averaging a finish of 7.00. That improvement of 4.71 is third best in the 250 class.
Julien Beaumer
Julien Beaumer is hitting his two biggest bogey tracks in back to back weeks. Red Bud (17.00) and Southwick (22.50) are his two worst tracks on the circuit in terms of average overall finish. His results didn’t show the performance he had at Red Bud last week. Beaumer had a first turn crash in moto one and ended up making 23 forward passes in the moto. He had crashes in moto two and he ended up making 19 forward passes in that moto. His 42 forward passes on the day were the most in the class by far. The next closest rider, Parker Ross, had 24.
Beaumer will look to smooth things back out at Southwick as he was enjoying a stellar campaign before Red Bud. He was averaging a moto finish of 3.43 in the last seven motos before last weekend.
Kayden Minear
Kayden Minear, growing up in western Australia, is known to be a good sand rider. He will put that to the test at Southwick for the first time in his professional career. Minear has been in a good run of form lately with five straight top ten moto finishes. One of those motos included a podium (third) at High Point.
He has been running more towards the front of late because his starts have drastically improved from the beginning of the season. At rounds 1-3, Minear averaged a lap one position of 15.50. At rounds 4-5, he has averaged 6.75, all four motos starting inside the top ten.
The Coenen Brothers
The Coenen brothers are making another stop in the United States this weekend at Southwick.
In the 450 class, Lucas Coenen will surely like that in six of the last seven races at Southwick, a rider with MXGP/EMX experience has won the overall. Jett (x3), Marvin Musquin (x2), and Dylan Ferrandis (x1).
in the 250 class, Sacha Coenen will try and pick up where he left off at Thunder Valley by securing another moto win or two. KTM only has one overall win in the class at Southwick but it came recently from Tom Vialle in 2023.