After doing a deep dive into Holeshot position averages (which you can read here), I wanted to look into championship riders holeshot stats over the 10 year period from 2015-2024.
From 2015-2024, the championship rider’s combined season average holeshot position is 5.55.
When looking at the best season averages in the last 10 years, here is how all individual rider seasons rank:
Rider is only included if they raced in over 50% of the races on the season (Triple Crowns are counted as races as well).
*is the championship finish adjusted for riders who raced >50% of the races on the season.
Champions are in bold.
Single Season Holeshot Average Rank 2015-2024
| Rank | Rider | Year | HS Avg | Season Avg Rank | Championship Finish* |
| 1 | Ryan Dungey | 2016 | 2.94 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | Eli Tomac | 2023 | 3.67 | 1 | 2 |
| 3 | Andrew Short | 2015 | 3.88 | 1 | 9 |
| 4 | Eli Tomac | 2018 | 4.05 | 1 | 3 |
| 5 | Ryan Dungey | 2015 | 4.12 | 2 | 1 |
| 6 | Jason Anderson | 2022 | 4.52 | 1 | 2 |
| 7 | Chase Sexton | 2023 | 4.82 | 2 | 1 |
| 8 | Eli Tomac | 2022 | 4.95 | 2 | 1 |
| 9 | Eli Tomac | 2017 | 5.00 | 1 | 2 |
| 10 | Cooper Webb | 2021 | 5.06 | 1 | 1 |
| 11 | Cooper Webb | 2019 | 5.13 | 1 | 1 |
| Jett Lawrence | 2024 | 5.13 | 1 | 1 | |
| N/A | Champion Average | 5.55 | N/A | N/A | |
| 13 | Ken Roczen | 2020 | 5.57 | 1 | 3 |
| 14 | Christian Craig | 2018 | 5.62 | 2 | 16 |
| 15 | Cooper Webb | 2023 | 5.63 | 3 | 3 |
| 16 | Chase Sexton | 2022 | 5.73 | 3 | 6 |
| 17 | Jason Anderson | 2020 | 5.76 | 2 | 4 |
| 18 | Ken Roczen | 2021 | 5.82 | 2 | 2 |
| 19 | Chase Sexton | 2021 | 5.91 | 3 | 12 |
| Cooper Webb | 2024 | 5.91 | 2 | 2 | |
| 32 | Jason Anderson | 2018 | 6.78 | 5 | 1 |
| 51 | Ryan Dungey | 2017 | 7.53 | 4 | 1 |
| 86 | Eli Tomac | 2020 | 9.05 | 7 | 1 |
Champions take up 7 of the top 12 positions. And only four of the top 20 finished outside the Top 5 in the championship.
Let’s break down the five of the top 12 that didn’t win the championship:
- I’ll start with Andrew Short, Short had an incredible stretch of five straight holeshots included in his 7 on the season in 2015. This was towards the end of Short’s career making it even more impressive.
- Tomac has three of the non championship places here.
- For 2023, Tomac would have been champion if it wasn’t for a freak achilles injury in the penultimate round of 2023.
- For 2017 and 2018, he probably should have won both titles these years. This was the era of the one SX race a year that would just have a bizarre Tomac result that would greatly impact his title hopes.
- The last is Jason Anderson in 2022. Anderson won 7 races in 2022, the same amount as the rest of his career combined. Anderson was in my opinion better in 2022 vs his 2018 title season, he would have been even more competitive in the title if he didn’t lose a lot of points in a few rounds that year.
So arguably 11 of the top 12 holeshot seasons could have been championship seasons. (Obviously that would take away the title from others on the top 12 list.)
Dungey in 2017, Anderson in 2018 and Tomac in 2020 seem like the outliers here. Tomac was the strongest rider in 2020 over the course of the season. However, in both 2017 and 2018, I would argue Dungey and Anderson were not the strongest riders on the season.
Given that for Jason Anderson, Cooper Webb and Eli Tomac, we have a large sample size with multiple years of holeshot data. I wanted to compare their non championship seasons to their title seasons.
Jason Anderson
| Year | Rider | HS Avg | Season HS Avg Rank | Championship Finish* |
| 2015 | Jason Anderson | 11.38 | 14 | 7 |
| 2016 | Jason Anderson | 7.29 | 4 | 3 |
| 2017 | Jason Anderson | 6.94 | 3 | 4 |
| 2018 | Jason Anderson | 6.78 | 5 | 1 |
| 2020 | Jason Anderson | 5.76 | 2 | 4 |
| 2021 | Jason Anderson | 10.56 | 11 | 7 |
| 2022 | Jason Anderson | 4.52 | 1 | 2 |
| 2023 | Jason Anderson | 7.25 | 7 | 6 |
| 2024 | Jason Anderson | 8.39 | 10 | 5 |
*is the championship finish adjusted for riders who raced >50% of the races on the season.
2019 is not included for Jason Anderson as he only raced three rounds.
Anderson’s holeshot average rank to championship finish correlates fairly well with a correlation of 0.777. Interestingly, the gap in his 2018 championship year is one of the larger ones with a four position gap between his average holeshot rank on the season compared to his first place championship finish. Anderson’s starts in 2023 and 2024 fell off a lot from his 2022 season, where he had the best holeshot average that year.
While Anderson’s start average is fairly linked with his championship finishes, this next rider is even closer…
Cooper Webb
| Year | Rider | HS Avg | Season HS Avg Rank | Championship Finish* |
| 2017 | Cooper Webb | 8.67 | 8 | 13 |
| 2018 | Cooper Webb | 8.71 | 9 | 9 |
| 2019 | Cooper Webb | 5.13 | 1 | 1 |
| 2020 | Cooper Webb | 6.35 | 4 | 2 |
| 2021 | Cooper Webb | 5.06 | 1 | 1 |
| 2022 | Cooper Webb | 7.00 | 5 | 7 |
| 2023 | Cooper Webb | 5.63 | 3 | 3 |
| 2024 | Cooper Webb | 5.91 | 2 | 2 |
*is the championship finish adjusted for riders who raced >50% of the races on the season.
From the table and chart, you see Cooper Webb’s holeshot season rank compares very closely with his championship finish – with a correlation of .913. This would be even closer with 2017, as Webb missed several rounds, dropping him down in points. The drop from 2018 to 2019 is very impressive and then to see the jump in 2022 when Webb had a down year (for Webb’s standards) is pretty showing.
Showing the table for Anderson and Webb might make it seems that I am directly saying that their holeshot position is determining/influencing their championship finishes. I am not saying this, I am making the point that is at least a portion of the reason. However, I believe that it has more to do with how the rider is riding overall in terms of speed and consistency. And from that, this shows up in their holeshot averages.
Essentially, the better they are riding, the better they perform in qualifying, thus they better they do in heat races, this leads to better gate choices for the main and then in the main these improved gates lead to a higher holeshot position average over the course of the season. And with how close qualifying has gotten over the past 15 years, the better the start the better the race finish.
However, one guy’s holeshot average is not very correlated at all…
Eli Tomac
| Year | Rider | HS Avg | Season HS Avg Rank | Championship Finish |
| 2015 | Eli Tomac | 7.59 | 5 | 2 |
| 2016 | Eli Tomac | 10.00 | 10 | 4 |
| 2017 | Eli Tomac | 5.00 | 1 | 2 |
| 2018 | Eli Tomac | 4.05 | 1 | 3 |
| 2019 | Eli Tomac | 7.70 | 8 | 2 |
| 2020 | Eli Tomac | 9.05 | 7 | 1 |
| 2021 | Eli Tomac | 7.76 | 5 | 3 |
| 2022 | Eli Tomac | 4.95 | 2 | 1 |
| 2023 | Eli Tomac | 3.67 | 1 | 2 |
| 2024 | Eli Tomac | 6.73 | 3 | 4 |
*is the championship finish adjusted for riders who raced >50% of the races on the season.
Eli Tomac’s average holeshot position to championship finish correlation is 0.185, essentially very little to no correlation. Since 2021, its very correlated, however not from 2015-2020. Tomac’s 2020 championship is an outlier in terms of holeshot average for a champion. What is interesting to me from this graphic is I don’t think Eli Tomac is ever really thought of as one of the best starters in the sport. However, over his career, we can see Tomac is often great and consistent with his holeshots.
I will update this type of analysis with Chase Sexton and Jett Lawrence as they get more seasons under their belt, as of now their sample sizes are too low.
But what this analysis shows is that in order to be a champion, you need to be very consistent and strong with holeshots. Jason Anderson in 2022 had the 6th best holeshot average in the last 10 years, won 7 races and yet that title was still wrapped up a race early by Eli Tomac.
Dungey in 2017, Anderson in 2018 and Tomac in 2020 all had very strong consistency. In those three championship seasons, 2017 Dungey never finished worse than 4th. 2018 Anderson had two races outside the top 5, a 7th and a 17th (due to tire change). And 2020 Tomac had just one race outside the top 5, a 7th. On top of that, you could argue they got some help from their top competitors struggling at certain rounds as well.
Thanks for reading! Any questions, hit me up on Twitter or Instagram: @MXReference
