Super Stats: How many riders finish on the lead lap in 450MX?

In 450 Moto 1 at High Point this year, Jett Lawrence lapped up to 10^th place which seemed higher than normal to me. Especially given that Justin Barcia, a rider with four career 450 overalls was two minutes and 28 seconds behind in 10^th.

This made me wonder how many riders tend to finish on the lead lap in 450 Motocross? We have Motocross laps data going back to 2004. Unfortunately, with Motocross laps data, there is quite a few rounds missing: 2004 Spring Creek, 2005 Steel City Moto 2, 2006 Hangtown, 2006 Steel City, 2007 Budds Creek, 2007 Freestone and 2008 Hangtown.

We have data for everything else in that timespan, which is still 467 motos to get data from!

I’ll break it down by Year, Moto, Venue and more.

Just covering the 450 Class for this and the data is updated through round 4 of the 2024 Pro Motocross season.

How many laps per moto are there?

First, I’ll cover how many laps we have on average.

In the 467 motos that we have data for, the average amount of laps per moto is 15.93.

Moto 1 since 2004 has averaged 15.97 laps per moto.

Moto 2 since 2004 has averaged 15.88 laps per moto.

The lowest number of laps we have had is just 9 laps at Unadilla Moto 2 in 2017 (that was a mud race).

The highest is 19 laps which has happened 5 times since 2004:

Moto 1 and 2 at the Utah National at Miller Motorsports Park in 2014
Moto 1 at Budds Creek in 2021
Moto 1 and 2 at Ironman last year in 2023

Total Laps	Instances
9	1
11	1
12	2
13	16
14	29
15	99
16	170
17	114
18	30
19	5

Breakdown by Venue

Venue	Motos w/ Data	Avg Laps per Moto
Miller Motorsports Park (Utah)	6	18.00
Muddy Creek (Tennessee)	10	17.70
Kenworthy’s Motocross Park	2	17.00
The Wick 338 (Southwick)	34	16.59
Freestone	10	16.50
Budds Creek	36	16.47
High Point	40	16.40
Lorreta Lynn’s	4	16.25
Ironman	22	16.09
WW Ranch	4	16.00
Spring Creek (Millville)	38	15.97
Hangtown	36	15.94
Thunder Valley	40	15.90
Washougal	38	15.84
Red Bud	42	15.79
Broome-Tioga (Binghamton)	6	15.67
Fox Raceway (Pala)	20	15.50
Unadilla	38	15.11
Lake Elsinore	4	15.00
Steel City	15	14.93
Glen Helen	22	14.18

How many riders finish on the lead lap?

The average in the 467 motos we have data for is 15.50 riders per moto finishing on the lead lap.

In Moto 1, on average 15.93 riders finish on the lead lap.

In Moto 2, on average 15.05 riders finish on the lead lap.

The lowest amount of riders on the lead lap ever was: just one rider at Spring Creek 2006 Moto 2 when Ricky Carmichael lapped the entire field.

Other than that, the lowest is five riders at Southwick Moto 1 in 2004.

The record for most riders finishing on the lead lap is Hangtown Moto 1 in 2010, where 30 riders finished on the lead lap.

Total Laps	Instances	Avg Lead Lap Riders
9	1	13.00
11	1	15.00
12	2	5.00
13	16	14.19
14	29	16.28
15	99	17.38
16	170	15.90
17	114	14.60
18	30	12.27
19	5	9.40

Table put into a chart:

Hard to take much away from the instances with 9, 11 and 12 total laps with such low sample sizes. This is especially the case with the two 12 lap instances, one of them is Carmichael lapping everyone, skewing it lower.

But it is interesting and makes sense that the average number of riders on the lead lap goes down the more laps there are. There are only 5 instances of motos with 19 laps, so the fastest rider has to be on a much faster pace to begin with and then likely would have crossed the finish line right before the timer expired, making more time to lap riders.

Riders on Lead Lap by Year

Year	Avg Riders on Lead Lap
2004	13.86
2005	15.17
2006	13.15
2007	16.65
2008	18.50
2009	22.17
2010	20.21
2011	13.50
2012	17.71
2013	16.21
2014	12.92
2015	14.25
2016	14.46
2017	14.96
2018	13.33
2019	15.13
2020	13.39
2021	14.63
2022	14.79
2023	13.14
2024	18.88

Table put into a chart:

I would have thought in the perfect seasons 2004, 2008 and 2023 there would be less riders on the lead lap compared to other years. However, there seems to be no correlation to how dominant the championship rider was to how many riders are on the lead lap.

Riders on Lead Lap by Venue

Venue	Motos w/ Data	Avg Riders on Lead Lap
Steel City	15	19.87
Thunder Valley	40	18.53
Washougal	38	18.37
Glen Helen	22	17.55
Freestone	10	16.60
Hangtown	36	16.47
Fox Raceway (Pala)	20	15.90
Unadilla	38	15.68
Lake Elsinore	4	15.25
Budds Creek	36	15.22
Red Bud	42	14.76
Spring Creek (Millville)	38	14.21
High Point	40	13.95
Muddy Creek	10	13.90
Ironman	22	13.59
WW Ranch	4	13.00
The Wick 338 (Southwick)	34	12.62
Lorreta Lynn’s	4	11.75
Kenworthy’s Motocross Park	2	11.00
Miller Motorsports Park	6	11.00
Broome-Tioga (Binghamton)	6	10.50

After looking at this table and the table of total laps by venue, it appears that there is a an inverse correlation with the venues with MORE laps, then the less riders on the lead lap.

After filtering down to the venues with at least 10 motos of data, the rank correlation is -0.63:

Venue	Avg Laps	Avg Laps RANK	Avg Riders on Lead Lap	Avg Riders on Lead Lap RANK
Muddy Creek	17.70	1	13.90	13
The Wick 338 (Southwick)	16.59	2	12.62	15
Freestone	16.50	3	16.60	5
Budds Creek	16.47	4	15.22	9
High Point	16.40	5	13.95	12
Ironman	16.09	6	13.59	14
Spring Creek (Millville)	15.97	7	14.21	11
Hangtown	15.94	8	16.47	6
Thunder Valley	15.90	9	18.53	2
Washougal	15.84	10	18.37	3
Red Bud	15.79	11	14.76	10
Fox Raceway (Pala)	15.50	12	15.90	7
Unadilla	15.11	13	15.68	8
Steel City	14.93	14	19.87	1
Glen Helen	14.18	15	17.55	4