The battle for the 2025 Monster Energy AMA Supercross 250SX West Championship is beginning to heat up. Despite numerous injuries that have depleted the 250 West field, three riders have asserted themselves at title threats and potential race winners every weekend. Triumph Factory Racing’s Jordon Smith, Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing’s Haiden Deegan, and Red Bull KTM’s Julien Beaumer, the current points leader, are the class of the field, with rookie Cole Davies closing rapidly. Haiden Deegan got his long-awaited first win of the season this weekend at A2 with relative ease after getting the holeshot and leading wire-to-wire.
While leading every lap makes this win seem rather procedural, there was much more too it considering the stakes. Deegan’s 5-3 finishes at the first two rounds of the season left him visibly frustrated on the podium. He and his team worked hard on his bike this week to make improvements. The day started out with another back-and-forth battle for pole position between Deegan and Beaumer. Deegan would come out on top in Q1, but Q2 and the overall fastest lap came from Beaumer. The highlight of the night may have come in heat two, which provided this year’s first head-to-head matchup between Deegan and Beaumer. Beaumer led early, but Deegan was able to close the gap quickly and put a block pass on Beaumer that left Beaumer on the ground as Deegan took off with the win. Deegan mentioned in his interview that if JuJu wanted to pay him back, he would be fine with it.
Beaumer started the main second behind Deegan and went for an identical pass in the very same turn on the first lap of the main. Payback? Well, he was not quite close enough to get the job done. Beaumer shadowed Deegan for a few laps but Deegan slowly pulled out a lead while Beaumer began to come under pressure from Jordon Smith, who was running third. Smith went for a late race pass in the whoops to make the pass but crashed, allowing Beaumer replicate his second-place finish from A1.
The win allowed Deegan to pass Smith for second in points, seven behind Beaumer. One race win for Beaumer and now one race win for Deegan.
On the podium, Haiden Deegan proclaimed, “You pissed off the bull last week, you know? Juju ran his mouth, so it’s time to lock in and yeah, you don’t want to piss me off because I come out swinging.”
Last week on the PulpMX Show, Beaumer said he was ready for a challenge from Deegan, stating: "I've been dealing with his antics since I was six years old."
In the post-race press conference after A2, Deegan was asked if he had felt any pressure to get a win on the night after his underwhelming start to the season. Deegan denied any pressure saying, “No pressure, just straight war mode, I’m like dude I’m blocking everything out. I need to win and that’s what it came down to. Me and Christian [Craig], we put in way too much work for me to be third place so that’s not happening. It was just war ready.”
When asked about the back and forth between he and Beaumer throughout the day, Haiden explained, “He’s got the red plate now so I’m going to ride him like he’s got the red plate. Obviously, it’s good racing. It’s supercross, you’re going to get into it and honestly the pass I did on him was a clean pass, he just got a little stuck in the berm. It’s supercross, we’re having some fun and I’m sure Juju is having fun too. In the main event he kind of ran it in a little as well and we looked over at each other on the double, which it’s fun, I enjoy that. But obviously I want to be first at the end of the race, but it’s cool though.”
Despite the aggressive passes and controversial comments by Deegan, Beaumer concurred with Deegan, replying, “Yeah, same as him. It’s fun we’re having fun. We’re racing dirt bikes and we’re here to win. So yeah, if we got to race like that every weekend, we’re going to race like that.”
When asked about what changed after San Diego and round two, Deegan he credited hard work during the week, stating, “I just did a lot of work this week and that’s what it comes down to is if you want to get good at something. You just got to nail it a lot of times. I was just grinding. Grinding the starts and grinding the bike set-up because I was having to do these races at 70 percent with my arms pumped up, so now I can do it at 70 percent with my oxygen there and everything and arms feeling great. Today was an absolute movie. Pretty much just got to the lead and could just ride my race at just 70-80 percent and finish the race. I feel like I could go another hour if I wanted to.”
He elaborated on his starts saying, “No, the thing is I know what technique I need to do, but I got too far away from it when I was doing the starts, like I was making mistakes. You got to drill back in that technique into your head and kind of nail that.”
Next week’s triple crown in Glendale is sure to bring more fireworks, as we will get to see Beaumer vs. Deegan three times on the night. Things have remained cordial between the two thus far, but we are still in the early stages of this championship and things can; and likely will, change as the series moves closer to crunch time.
