In 2003, Matt Kenseth won the UAW-Daimler Chrysler 400 by nine seconds over Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in Round 3. He would not visit victory lane again for nearly a year, but consistency was enough to give him the Winston Cup title. It was the fourth time in history and the second time in NASCAR's modern era that the series came that close to having a winless champion.
It sent shockwaves through the sport. The premiere stock car series adopted a playoff-style system the following season.
In 2026, the SuperMotocross Playoffs entered the season finale with three points separating Levi Kitchen from second-place Ryder DiFrancesco. Between them, the top two riders won two of the four motos; Kitchen had an overall win based on his 2-2 performance in the mud in Columbus, Ohio. DiFrancesco scored his moto win in that same round.
DiFrancesco had his worst performance during the final round, finishing 10th in the first moto and sixth in the second. The SuperMotocross League dodged the dubious distinction of having a winless champion.
The comparison is far from exact. Kenseth had 36 occasions to win. DiFrancesco had only three. To his credit, DiFrancesco won as many motos as Kitchen, but this was not an ideal situation for SuperMotocross.
The SuperMotocross Playoffs debuted in 2023 with a points' system that guarantees the finale will always be close, but the shortness of the playoffs virtually assures these types of scenarios will continue.
- Dan Beaver,
Is it time to tinker?
Three rounds is an extremely short time to decide a championship. The popularity of the series is such that Daytona International Speedway continues to aggressively lobby for one of the coveted rounds.
Anchor locations like Daytona and Thunder Valley Nature Area in Ridgedale, Missouri, are important to the popularity of the series. Major events on a predictable schedule means fans can plan vacations around those events, but under the current circumstances mean of only three rounds, two anchors limit the potential for variety.
The large footprint of zMax Dragway, The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Chicagoland Speedway, and this season at Thunder Ridge Nature Area, have allowed the series to create extremely interesting and challenging track designs.
The other two tracks in 2026 had unique challenges. Columbus hosted the first true mud race in the history of the series. Mud races require extreme fitness and core strength.
Carson, California had a small footprint and it highlighted a different set of skills, akin to short tracks versus speedways in NASCAR. Tight, technical courses require a high degree of technical proficiency.
- Dan Beaver,
Defining Greatness
One feature that has made NASCAR a great showcase is that champions need to be strong on a variety of tracks: short tracks, speedways, road courses, and superspeedways—flat tracks and courses with high banks. If a driver lacks skills on one type of track, it is much less likely they will walk away with the big hardware.
That same rule should apply to dirt bike racing.
Expanding the SMX Playoffs to five rounds would create additional opportunities to feature new venues and allow track designers to unleash greater creativity and add a wider variety of obstacles. It would also allow the series to mix and match skill elements that underscores the diversity required to be great in dirt bike racing.
One could rightly argue that the schedule is already maxed out. Thirty-one rounds in a season is about as much as the riders' bodies can bear—Hunter Lawrence and Cooper Webb were the only two riders to complete every 450 round—so expanding the Playoffs would need to come at the expense of the existing schedule. The solution could come by taking one round from Supercross and one from Motocross.
That is a extreme idea that might not be all the radical in implementation.
Supercross faces hard choices every year as to which markets should be visited. In the past three seasons, the series has added four new markets to the schedule, so they are accustomed to denying certain markets during some seasons.
They have already found a solution in two-year rotations between cities such as St. Louis and Houston, as well as several others. In 2025, St. Louis hosted a SuperMotocross Playoff round after Supercross skipped that market during the regular season.
Suggestions have already been made that an existing Motocross track could be altered slightly to host a SuperMotocross round, which could essentially mean, one of the elven Motocross tracks would not be required to lose a date.
Change is a difficult process, but any child can attest that pain is often a part of the process of growing. If the SuperMotocross Playoffs wants to get bigger, it may well mean that sacrifices are required by its parents.