It was only round three of the 2026 AMA Supercross season, but it felt Chase Sexton’s first win for Kawasaki was a long time coming after a bad ending at KTM and two rollercoaster opening rounds of the 2026 season that had Chase chasing bike set-up yet again.
Sexton even crashed in practice and the heat race at A2 but pulled it together for the main event, ensuring that raw speed finally got him a win to put him 14 points back id Eli Tomac and stay in this title fight. A very happy Sexton spoke to the media after his vital win.
Sexton on his day at A1
I qualified fastest, but I didn’t finish the last session. It was a little bit unfortunate going down in the loops. I was pretty upset with myself. I couldn’t finish the practice with my bars were bent, so I just went back. And then the heat race felt good again. It went down. I was just like, this can’t be happening. I feel like I’ve been kind of fighting an uphill battle a little bit the last, well, honestly, since SMX. So this one feels good to kind of finally break through.
It feels like I haven’t won in a very long time and it feels good to get the first one for the team. They work on their butts off….made some really good changes with the bike. I kind of told them after the heat race that we got to make some changes and I don’t really know what to do. My turning and my whoops were way better for the main event.
On changing strategy for the main event
I had a really good day of riding on Wednesday. The team, again, crushed it this week with testing. And I had finally a feeling on the bike that I’ve been looking for for a while since really something got on it. And I finally felt freed up and I kind of put the bike where I wanted. And even from Presta, I just felt normal again. And I felt like I could ride how I wanted. And yeah, it blew over into the day. Obviously, my speed was good. Maybe it was overriding. I wanted to win so bad that I was overriding it a bit.
And honestly, for the main event, I told myself I’m going to go out there and ride it. Not 80 percent, but I was going to go out there and ride a good pace and get into a flow and see what happens. And I knew my speed was good enough to be able to ride, not at 100 percent and still win. So it was good. Track was tricky, very rutted. And it was crazy.I felt like I was at Detroit or not Indy, but like some East Coast race where it was super soft in the transitions and the turns were obviously a little more hardback. But it was a tricky track. And when I got out front and just kind of logged my laps, read the pit board and just rode her in.
On the work he has put his mechanic through
Rango, he’s I’ve known him since I rode at James’s when I was like 2020 through like 2022. And he was an awesome mechanic, obviously. So I got to got to know him there. And then when I came here, I was pretty comfortable, obviously, right off the bat. And we did a lot of testing, a lot of switching parts, suspension, like he was working his butt off and didn’t have my race bike because I tested. I think it was a week before Anaheim and Florida and like that was the final test. So he had to build the race by basically a week before the race. And then I didn’t ride it. Broc Tickle broke it in for me, so it was pretty last second.
It was cool to see how emotional he was after the race and how much it means to him. It kind of gave me chills and almost made me tear up because obviously winning is awesome. But when it means that much to somebody and obviously it means a lot to me and also the team, it makes it that much sweeter. So it’s good to have Kawi on top again. I want to keep them there. They deserve it.
