The 2026 Monster Energy Supercross season is officially in the books.
Round 17 at Rice-Eccles Stadium wasn’t just the finale. It was the East/West Showdown, the one night a year where both coasts stack into a single field and only the sharpest 20 from each region make the night show.
That’s the kind of pressure that sorts teams out. And the Dirt Legal DBDRacing WMR KTM squad showed up ready for it.
What Made Salt Lake City Different From Every Other Round
Most weekends, the 250 class runs as separate coasts. East riders race East, West riders race West. Not in Salt Lake City.
The East/West Showdown format throws everyone together. The field gets tighter, the qualifying cutoffs get harder to hit, and every gate drop carries more weight. Just making the night show is a real result.
The team traveled over 2,000 miles to get there, rolling in wearing retro 110 Racing gear with matching HBD Graphics kits. GUTS Racing came on as the weekend title sponsor, which made the long haul a little easier to manage.
Coming off a tough night in Philadelphia, where a mid-race downpour turned Lincoln Financial Field into a mud pit and cost several riders key transfer spots, the team needed Salt Lake City to be a clean, fast weekend.
Four riders. One shot at a strong season closer. Here’s how it played out.
Jace Kessler Ran With the Lead Pack in the LCQ
Kessler had one of his cleanest days of the entire season in Salt Lake City.
He sat 12th after the first qualifying session, then kept improving and finished 15th overall in East Coast qualifying, tying his season best.
The heat race didn’t go his way. But the LCQ was a different story.
He grabbed the holeshot from second off the start and stayed in contention with the lead group for the entire race. He crossed 6th. That’s one of the strongest rides he put together all season, start to finish.
Marcus Phelps Ran Top-20 Speed Before the Altitude Caught Up
Phelps was clean all through qualifying, sitting comfortably inside the top 20 every session. He carried that into the heat race and came through the first turn in 7th.
Then the nine-lap grind started taking its toll.
A few small errors opened the door for other riders, and the altitude at Rice-Eccles Stadium, sitting at roughly 4,637 feet above sea level, started doing its thing. Phelps was physically sick after the heat race and had very little left for the LCQ, finishing 15th.
It wasn’t the ending he wanted. But putting himself in 7th through the first turn of a heat race at the East/West Showdown is real speed. That part wasn’t in question.
Jaxen Driskell Got Back Behind the Gate and That Was the Win
Driskell spent a big chunk of this season on the sideline dealing with injuries.
He came into Salt Lake City hovering right around the qualifying bubble, then improved his lap time in the second session and secured his spot in the night show. That alone was worth something.
The heat race and LCQ were both hampered by poor starts, and he finished 16th in the LCQ. The box score doesn’t tell the full story here. After the time he missed, lining up at the series finale in the most competitive field of the year was the result that mattered.
Anthony Rodriguez Topped His Group Early, Then Had to Dig Out of Trouble
Rodriguez showed his best speed in the morning. He topped his qualifying group in the first session, which set the tone for what kind of day it could have been.
The heat race had other plans. He got tangled in first-turn chaos, restarted near the back, and charged his way up to 15th. In the LCQ, he was inside the top eight early but couldn’t find the passes he needed to transfer, finishing 9th.
Results for the Night
| Rider | Qualifying | Heat Race | LCQ |
| Anthony Rodriguez | 34th | 15th | 9th |
| Jace Kessler | 15th (East) | 16th | 6th |
| Marcus Phelps | 17th (East) | 13th | 15th |
| Jaxen Driskell | 19th (East) | 17th | 16th |
What the 2026 Season Looked Like From Round 1 to Round 17
This team grew. A lot.
The gap between where the program was at the opening round and where it stood in Salt Lake City was real and visible. Every rider improved. Every crew member got sharper. The results over the second half of the season backed that up.
A huge thank you goes out to Dirt Legal, GUTS Racing, 110 Racing, HBD Graphics, and every sponsor, crew member, and supporter who made the season happen.
We’ll be back.
Why Dirt Legal Sponsors a Supercross Team
Our roots are in the dirt. Literally.
Dirt Legal started because we wanted riders to take their bikes off the trail and onto the road without jumping through a mountain of paperwork to do it. That motivation hasn’t changed. It’s why sponsoring a KTM-backed Supercross team just makes sense for us.
We handle the registration side so riders can focus on riding. Got a dirt bike you want to ride street-legal? We can get it titled and registered without you ever setting foot in a DMV. Plates ship in as little as one day. The paperwork stays with us; you stay on the bike.
Same goes for UTVs, ATVs, and anything else with handlebars and knobby tires.
Ready to take your machine from the track to the street?
