From the beginning, whether this was real or not, I was hooked. I love the idea of watching 10 moto legends go head-to-head, some rekindling old rivalries and likely we’ll see a few new ones started. As a fan of the sport and especially the statistics, these match-ups house a lot of stories. These riders combined career supercross and motocross stats highlight the incredible depth and talent that will be on display this coming Tuesday.
I’m especially looking forward to the fireside chat on Monday night. I’m anticipating a fair amount of trash talk amongst these riders and it’ll be interesting to see if Ryan Villopoto dominates the discussion like he did on the #400 PulpMX Show!? So far, the best trash talk award goes to Kevin Windham. He said, “I feel great about going to this race wherever it is. I’ve beat the 199,2,9,the beast from the east, 12, 800, & 264. I’ve had my tire changed by the Golden Boy. That leaves 6 time. I can’t wait to kick 6 times ass and bring that MFK belt back to Mississippi”.
Beyond the fact that Kevin just highlighted that Broc Glover used to change his tires and he’s going to kick Jeff Stanton’s ass, this really triggered the memory of some great race moments amongst these riders. The immediate ones that surfaced are Mike Alessi standing on Ivan Tedesco’s bike at the final race of the 2005 125 championship in Glen Helen, Jeff Stanton winning the 1992 supercross championship over Damon Bradshaw at the final round, and the number of times that Mike Alessi absolutely dominated Ryan Villopoto and Jake Weimer in the amateur ranks.
This really got me wondering just how do these riders career stats match-up. So I dove into the 3 Laps Down database of supercross and now motocross stats. Here’s a few things that stood out…
Broc Glover is a bad-ass. On Twitter, JoJo Keller commented “Broc could be the most underrated mx’r of them all…”. We here a lot about Hannah, RJ, Bailey, Wardy, et al, but Broc Glover’s stats are arguably better. He’s won 6 championships (3x 125 and 3x 500 MX champion) and finished 2nd overall on 3 different occasions. He’s tied for 6th (with Eli Tomac) in MX Overall Wins and tied for 4th (with Ryan Villopoto) in MX Moto Wins. Only Ricky Carmichael, James Stewart, and Ryan Dungey have more MX Moto Wins than Broc Glover!
Broc Glover deserves more attention when considering the best-of-the-best. The table below shows the motocross stats of all 10 Moto FITE Klub riders. Take a look at Broc’s career MX stats.
Kevin Windham is obviously the man, but it’s really mind-boggling to consider that he race 381 times over 19 years. That’s 228 supercross main events and another 153 motocross Saturday’s. It’s almost double Ivan Tedesco’s 242 races and Mike Alessi’s 237.
Travis Pastrana’s racing career was really short, but very successful. He competed in 3 full seasons (2 SX and 1 MX) and another shortened 7 seasons. But during that time he had 2 championships, 15 wins, and 29 podiums. Percentage-wise, Travis is up there with the best, but the reality is that he’s one of the best riders to throw a leg over a motorcycle given he went on to win 17 X Games medals!
Last but not least, the impressive nature of Ryan Villopoto’s stats. While he only raced 9 seasons, he has 10 championships, ranks 4th in All-Time SX Wins (52), 9th in All-Time MX Wins, and is tied for 4th in All-Time MX Moto Wins. Ryan won almost half the races (45%) he entered, including 52 of 118 supercross main events.
The table below shows the supercross stats of all 10 Moto FITE Klub riders. Take a look at Ryan’s career SX stats and consider the stark contrast of Mike Alessi winning 11 Loretta Lynn’s titles to his 1.
What else stood out for you in the stats of these 10 riders?! Hit me up on Instagram or Twitter @3lapsdown to bench race and let me know who you think wins Moto FITE Klub. I’m going with Ryan Sipes. I may love stats, but I also love an underdog and I think he’s going to be hungry, not to mention stay out of the mess of rivalries, come Tuesday.
