At Anaheim 1 this year, Eli Tomac became the second oldest rider to ever win a Supercross race. Its pretty shocking to me that Tomac is older than Chad Reed was in his last win of his career.
Last year, Cooper Webb became the oldest Champion in series history. If Tomac or Webb (or Roczen) were to win the title this year, they would become the first rider over 30 to win the Supercross title.
The combined age on the podium at A1 of Tomac, Roczen and Prado was the 7th oldest podium this century. And it included Prado who just turned 25 on January 5th.
Of the 30 oldest combined podiums this century, 23 of them have been since 2020. And 20 have been since 2022…
Pretty wild.
So is this just because of the current crop of riders? Or is there something to this historically? I have all the series champions dates of birth but before 2000s era riders have dates of births that are missing/unavailable. So I will be using 2000 as a cut off throughout this article. Since 2000, I am missing very few rider’s dates of birth that have made a 450SX main event. So, lets see if the series is trending older over time.
Lets look at the champions first.
Age of Supercross Champions Throughout History
Age of Supercross champions on final round of the series 1974-2025:
Lots of fluctuation, however, we can see an upward trend overall even with the first year ever having an older rider historically.
Furthermore, here is the average age of the champions each decade of Supercross:
Average Age of Supercross Champions by Decade
| 1970s | 23.23 |
| 1980s | 23.04 |
| 1990s | 24.10 |
| 2000s | 24.08 |
| 2010s | 24.55 |
| 2020s (so far) | 26.12 |
Average Age of Supercross Winners by Decade
| 2000s | 23.59 |
| 2010s | 24.70 |
| 2020s | 27.02 |
Okay so this is just the champions and race winners, what about everyone else?
Lets look at those who made a podium since 2000. Top level riders.
Age of Supercross Podium Riders | 2000-2025
Again we can see an upward trend, however, from 2000 to 2014, its actually slightly downward:
From 2000 to 2014, it is essentially flat, but since 2015:
A pretty big jump from 2015! From right over 24 to just under 29 on average! I think the 2024 dip is almost solely due to Jett Lawrence’s young age, but the trend is still there.
So now lets compare all riders in Main Events (some date of births are missing from some riders).
Age of Supercross Main Event Riders | 2000-2025
The trend looks the same. So what is driving this?
I think this dates back in large part to the riders entering the 250 class from roughly 2009-2014 that have had longer than average careers in the 450 class.
Justin Barcia, Eli Tomac, Jason Anderson, Ken Roczen are the main four. If you also include Malcolm Stewart and Marvin Musquin in this, that is six riders taking up factory rides for 10+ years now (Musquin has retired after 2022 and was also older when he entered the 450 class). I would consider Stewart and Musquin of the same generation despite entering the 450 class later.
This has had several impacts in my opinion such as delaying entering the 450 class until older ages.
Barcia, Tomac, Anderson and Roczen entered the 450 class from ages 19-21 on factory rides.
The recent riders to move up to the 450 class on factory riders:
Hunter Lawrence – 24 years old in 2024.
Garrett Marchbanks – 24 years old in 2026.
Justin Cooper – 25 years old in 2023.
RJ Hampshire – 29 in 2026.
Looking forward to next year, Deegan is of course very young but Levi Kitchen will be 25, Jo Shimoda will be 24.
So not only do the 450 riders race longer, the 250 riders generally enter older as a result. So why do the 450 riders race longer?
I do think the current crop of older 450 riders of Barcia, Tomac, Anderson, Roczen and Malcolm Stewart are a bit of outliers and will not be the norm going forward. But maybe I am wrong about that. Every rider now rides at training facilities (excluding Tomac) and is on an excellent training program. There is likely less difference between how riders train today vs 20 years ago. Health and diet have likely done nothing but improve for these riders as well. Furthermore, with the exception of Roczen, these riders aren’t on Supercross only contract structures. I could very likely see these riders participating in another year or two of outdoors and then doing Supercross only. That would bring them to roughly age 35 across the board. If they are still competitive, why not keep going? These riders have all dealt with many injuries over the years and are moving up very high on the all-time starts lists. This makes me wonder what is the biggest driver from a rider falling off the pace is. Is it age, injuries or volume of races. Obviously all are major factors, but I wonder if one sticks out more than others. (Something I can look into.)
Do we ever see the trend reverse?
I think this is possible but not for a few more generations. Unless Tomac, Anderson, Roczen, Barcia, Stewart all retire in the same year, they will likely keep the average up as guys like Hunter Lawrence, Chase Sexton, Justin Cooper, Aaaron Plessinger approach 30.
Jett and Deegan will certainly lower the average. But a lot of the riders entering the 450 class over the next few years will be older than Jett Lawrence: Shimoda, Kitchen. Anstie and McAdoo are far older if they move up at some point too.
Something to watch over the next decade!
Thanks for reading! Any questions or feedback, hit me up on Instagram or Twitter: @MXReference
