Roczen, Lawrence and Anderson on those of Supercross 2025.
Whoops have been a topical point once again in Monster Energy Supercross this year, firstly when DirtWurx reintroduced more than nine whoops in San Diego – adding an additional one to make 10 – and then at Anaheim 2 the track builders experimented with rolled whoops in the second set. This latest Input features Ken Roczen, Jett Lawrence and Jason Anderson each speaking about the whoop factor of 2025.
Ken Roczen (Progressive Ecstar Suzuki):
Honestly, they both [sets of whoops] broke down [at Anaheim 2], for sure. Even in practice, I was a little, I don’t know if surprised, but you know, when you walk them, they were like cement, especially the rolled ones, right? And but then we have hundreds of people doing hundreds of laps throughout the day and you’re just, you’re going to break through the crust. But that second set of whoops, even though they were rolled, they were no joke. I think, I thought they were pretty big and, of course, once they get cupped out, they start getting steeper and steeper. So then the rain played a big role too. And I mean, overall, though, I did enjoy the track. I thought it was technical. It was a very busy track. I’ve got two kids… I don’t have time to worry about what the tracks are going to be like, so I’ve honestly just been showing up, not overthinking it.
Jett Lawrence (Honda HRC Progressive):
I’m a fan of having the harder whoops, you know, like a lot of us top guys, we practice and we train a lot on whoops to try and become better because it is such a… You can gain a lot, but you can also lose a lot there. So I think when we had the nine whoops where if you weren’t as good at a skimmer, you could just go jump to them three times and get out of it, it’s kind of unfair in a way, because the guys who have worked their butt off to try and skim better and get the bike where it works better and that’s tough because it is hard to skim. It’s a lot more of a technical thing. You have to put it on this much of the whoop, even though the whoops are big, you’re still only hitting like just a small spot, so I think having the more whoops is better and having them steamroll to make sure they kind of stay a little bit more skimmers. I think for better Supercross skimmer whoops like Kenny, Jason, Eli [Tomac], myself, Chase [Sexton], we have a bit of an upper-hand because we took that time to work on that, so I think I’m a fan of having more whoops and more difficult ones. Like I mean, I struggled in these whoops today, even I got by sideways a few times, but it kind of creates good racing… Not just simple whoops, we’re not just going, brup, brup, doing them easy, you know. So I’m a fan of them, even if they’re hard for me personally.
Jason Anderson (Monster Energy Kawasaki):
For me, I think the steamroller is nice. I think if you build the whoops with a lot of dirt, they don’t have to be huge. But I think they can still be safe to where we can all blitz them through the whole night. And I don’t think, I think tonight they did a really really good job at making them have enough dirt to where you could blitz them and jump them, because when I was behind [Justin] Cooper, I mean, he was still jumping them, and it wasn’t like terrible, so it took still took me, you know, three laps to pass him. I think they were they were solid. Even if you go to some of the off-season races, like back in the day, like Geneva, it’s soft dirt, but they steamroll them and they still stay blitzable for the whole night.