Written by Tyler Pastorius
In a season where we didn’t see Ryan Dungey race after retiring, the question coming into the 2018 Monster Energy Supercross season was who will the new champion be? With a fifth-place finish, that was enough for Jason Anderson and his Rockstar Energy Husqvarna to claim the 450 Supercross title. Eli Tomac (Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki) won the race, followed by the French rider Marvin Musquin (Red Bull KTM) and then Blake Baggett (Rocky Mountain ATV/MC Racing KTM). Musquin finished second in the last main event of the year, as well as second in the championship by nine points to Anderson.
Tomac dominated the race to get the win and after this win, he has total of eight wins on the season. Tomac was able to grab the holeshot right off of the bat and never lost first place, even though Musquin challenged him a couple of times. Just like last year, he dominated for about half of the season but still came up short in the championship. He put in a great year but he still came up short and had a disappointing finish by not being able to grab the title for the second year in the row after rattling off multiple victories. Tomac will need to cut down his big mistakes where we see him not finish the race or have a low finish on a race weekend. This win for Tomac however, was his twenty-first of his career so it will be interesting to see how he follows up his 2018 campaign in 2019.
For Rockstar Energy Husqvarna, this is the first 450 Supercross title and the same goes for Jason Anderson. The teams’ hauler will be a party as not only did they get the 450 title, but they also claimed the 250 East title with Zach Osborne. Anderson was content with his fifth-place finish in the race once he got into his groove and settled in. Anderson has four victories this season but because he’s so consistent every week, that’s why he is the 2018 champion.
He spends most of his time training with Aldon Baker, who also helped train a former champion in Dungey, but he also currently trains Musquin. This year, Anderson put in more consistent rides and it’d be safe to assume that he picked up a few pointers along the way from Dungey and Baker.
With the 2018 Monster Energy Supercross season coming to a close, the teams and riders look to the Lucas Oil Motcross outdoor season that kicks off in two weeks in Sacramento, CA. Even though Anderson won the title this season, the question of if he can repeat next year was raised moments after the win. That will be something to monitor going forward as Anderson will be facing some tough competition next season.
Ken Roczen, aboard the Honda HRC team, will look to finally push through and have a healthy season to compete with Anderson, Tomac and Musquin. Roczen is already back on his bike after recovering from a crash that required surgery after round six in San Diego. He is scheduled to make his return to the outdoors series.
Congratulations to Jason Anderson and the rest of Rockstar Energy Husqvarna team as they claim their first title in the premier class. They have their eyes set on one more title in the outdoor series before the year ends.
