Throughout the history of Supercross, there have been several manufacturers come and go. There have been a few to stick around for the 50+ year history of Supercross and have competed every single year of the sport in the premier class. Those are the historical Big 4 Japanese manufacturers of:
- Honda
- Yamaha
- Kawasaki
- Suzuki
Other manufacturers such as KTM and Husqvarna have had interesting histories as well.
So what does the average starts by manufacturer by year look like for each brand?
Well first, here is a (very busy) chart showing the breakdown by ALL manufacturers from 1974 to 2025. The OTHER manufacturers in this chart include: Ammex/Islo, Bultaco, Cagiva, Can-am, Carabela, CZ, Harley-Davidson, Maico, Montesa and Penton. These manufacturers were all mostly out of the sport by the early 1980s in Supercross.
As mentioned before, the Other manufacturers show up in this chart in the 1970s to early 1980s. From there, its the main 4 Japanese manufacturers of Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha. You can see KTM take off in the early 2010s, as well as Husqvarna. In the last few years, you can also see GasGas and Beta.
Here is the same chart but since 2010:
This gives a better picture of the recent 450 SX history broken down by manufacturer. What is interesting here for me is the decline and then rise of Yamaha. As well as decline of Suzuki.
Now we can look into these in a more in depth way. I’ll break down the average number of starts per race, per manufacturer through time.
Honda
I would have added data labels but it would make the chart too crowded. Raw numbers are at the bottom of this article in a table.
What is crazy for Honda here is in 2006 where they had an average of 11.19 riders per main event on average. That’s more than half the riders in the main! (At this time, main events were still 20 riders – it changed to 22 in 2014.) From there, the drop off is pretty significant – dropping to 3.29 riders per main event in 2011. I believe this is heavily influenced by the 2009 Honda 450 that was very unpopular amongst riders.
Honda has had the highest average of riders in a Main Event in 24 of the 52 Supercross seasons. And 11 of those have come in the last 20 years.
Honda had 4.18 riders on average in 2025, which was second behind KTM at 4.53.
Yamaha
Yamaha averaged over 9 riders per main event in both 1981 (9.42) and 2003 (9.38). What sticks out to me here is the all the sudden drop offs for Yamaha over the years. 1981 to 1982, 2003 to 2006 and 2011 to 2014. Yamaha has been more stagnant since 2011 but dropping as low as 2.35 rider per main in 2019.
Kawasaki
Kawasaki has probably been the most consistent over time based on this chart with one big down swing in the early to mid 2000s. 2003 saw just 0.91 Kawasaki’s in the main event on average. 2012 sticks out with an average of 8.35 for Kawasaki. Only three times in the 52 year history of Supercross has Kawasaki had the highest average among manufacturers: 2012, 2015 and 2023.
Suzuki
Suzuki peaked in terms of average riders in the main events in 1990 and 1991. 1988 through 1993, Suzuki had the most riders on average in a main event. From the mid 1990s to about 2010 they saw a much lower amount of bikes in the mains, however, there was a resurgence in the 2010s. In fact, 2013 and 2017, they once again had the most riders in the main on average. Following 2019, there was once again a steep drop off.
KTM
KTM was almost non existent in main events until about 2011. 2006 and 2007 saw ZERO KTMs in the main events. 2011 happens to be the year Roger DeCoster took over factory team efforts. Since then, it has been an upward trend for the brand. And this is despite having Husqvarna and GasGas brands introduced in 2015 and 2021 counting against their totals. The spike you see from 1990-1995 for KTM was still under 1.50 on average in those years. In 2022 and 2025, KTM had the most bikes in main events on average.
Husqvarna
Husqvarna has a very interesting history in Premier Class Supercross being present in the 1970s to a little bit in the 1980s. Husqvarna made a slight comeback in 2001 and 2002 only to disappear until 2015. Since 2015, they surged to their highest points in 2018 and have since declined since then.
GasGas and Beta
I didn’t feel the need to include these two new brands as there is such a small history of them in Supercross. GasGas has been around for 5 seasons now but that really wasn’t enough for their own chart.
Going forward, we will soon see Ducati in 2026 as well. I’ll have to figure out what color to use for them in charts as the base red belongs to Honda. Triumph should also have 450 riders going forward too.
Thanks for reading! Any questions, hit me up on Twitter or Instagram: @MXReference
Raw numbers from charts for reference:
| Year | Beta | GasGas | Honda | Husqvarna | Kawasaki | KTM | Suzuki | Yamaha |
| 1974 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 0.67 | 0.00 | 1.67 | 0.67 |
| 1975 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2.75 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 0.00 | 1.00 | 3.75 |
| 1976 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.50 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 0.17 | 3.50 | 1.83 |
| 1977 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.10 | 2.00 | 1.60 | 0.00 | 4.30 | 3.00 |
| 1978 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 5.73 | 1.00 | 1.45 | 0.36 | 3.55 | 4.82 |
| 1979 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 5.08 | 0.17 | 3.17 | 0.08 | 4.08 | 6.92 |
| 1980 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 4.76 | 0.47 | 2.59 | 0.18 | 4.47 | 8.41 |
| 1981 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 4.67 | 0.17 | 2.25 | 0.17 | 3.92 | 9.42 |
| 1982 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 8.92 | 0.25 | 3.17 | 0.00 | 5.42 | 3.67 |
| 1983 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 7.13 | 0.00 | 2.25 | 0.31 | 3.56 | 5.88 |
| 1984 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 8.12 | 0.29 | 3.59 | 0.00 | 3.29 | 5.88 |
| 1985 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 6.27 | 0.27 | 5.27 | 0.00 | 3.18 | 6.55 |
| 1986 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 5.25 | 0.08 | 4.67 | 0.00 | 3.00 | 7.00 |
| 1987 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 6.14 | 0.00 | 4.50 | 0.00 | 4.21 | 5.14 |
| 1988 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 4.30 | 0.00 | 5.00 | 0.00 | 6.40 | 4.10 |
| 1989 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 6.60 | 0.00 | 4.20 | 0.00 | 6.67 | 3.40 |
| 1990 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 4.56 | 0.00 | 5.06 | 0.11 | 8.28 | 2.28 |
| 1991 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.72 | 0.00 | 4.28 | 1.44 | 8.28 | 2.28 |
| 1992 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.88 | 0.00 | 5.44 | 1.31 | 5.75 | 4.25 |
| 1993 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 5.31 | 0.00 | 2.56 | 1.13 | 6.19 | 5.44 |
| 1994 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 6.33 | 0.00 | 3.87 | 0.80 | 3.07 | 6.60 |
| 1995 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 8.47 | 0.00 | 3.40 | 1.40 | 2.33 | 4.67 |
| 1996 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 5.67 | 0.00 | 5.67 | 0.20 | 4.33 | 4.80 |
| 1997 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 4.93 | 0.00 | 5.47 | 0.13 | 4.47 | 5.67 |
| 1998 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 5.50 | 0.00 | 5.69 | 0.31 | 3.38 | 5.75 |
| 1999 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 6.75 | 0.00 | 3.75 | 0.06 | 4.69 | 5.38 |
| 2000 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 7.38 | 0.00 | 3.56 | 1.00 | 3.25 | 5.44 |
| 2001 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 6.31 | 1.00 | 4.25 | 0.25 | 1.88 | 6.94 |
| 2002 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 8.63 | 0.19 | 2.69 | 0.00 | 3.00 | 6.13 |
| 2003 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 7.00 | 0.00 | 0.94 | 0.63 | 2.69 | 9.38 |
| 2004 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 7.50 | 0.00 | 1.00 | 0.75 | 3.69 | 7.06 |
| 2005 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 9.75 | 0.00 | 1.25 | 0.13 | 3.38 | 5.50 |
| 2006 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 11.19 | 0.00 | 1.94 | 0.00 | 4.25 | 2.63 |
| 2007 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 8.69 | 0.00 | 5.94 | 0.00 | 3.00 | 2.94 |
| 2008 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 9.76 | 0.00 | 3.59 | 1.00 | 1.47 | 4.71 |
| 2009 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 8.65 | 0.00 | 3.24 | 0.76 | 2.24 | 5.12 |
| 2010 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 5.12 | 0.00 | 4.76 | 0.12 | 3.24 | 6.94 |
| 2011 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.29 | 0.00 | 4.65 | 2.53 | 2.59 | 6.94 |
| 2012 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.76 | 0.00 | 8.35 | 1.00 | 3.65 | 3.24 |
| 2013 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 5.24 | 0.00 | 2.53 | 2.88 | 5.29 | 4.06 |
| 2014 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 6.12 | 0.00 | 3.65 | 4.18 | 5.41 | 2.65 |
| 2015 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 4.18 | 1.47 | 5.53 | 2.65 | 4.82 | 3.35 |
| 2016 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 5.53 | 1.65 | 3.12 | 3.88 | 4.29 | 3.53 |
| 2017 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 4.88 | 2.18 | 2.35 | 4.35 | 5.65 | 2.59 |
| 2018 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 5.00 | 3.12 | 2.71 | 4.18 | 4.29 | 2.71 |
| 2019 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 5.71 | 2.59 | 3.12 | 4.29 | 3.94 | 2.35 |
| 2020 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 6.06 | 2.94 | 3.18 | 4.35 | 2.29 | 3.18 |
| 2021 | 0.00 | 1.00 | 5.12 | 2.18 | 3.41 | 4.94 | 1.29 | 4.06 |
| 2022 | 0.00 | 1.82 | 4.59 | 1.88 | 2.06 | 5.35 | 2.12 | 4.18 |
| 2023 | 0.00 | 2.06 | 3.06 | 0.82 | 5.71 | 4.47 | 2.76 | 3.12 |
| 2024 | 1.18 | 1.29 | 4.71 | 1.35 | 3.88 | 2.71 | 3.00 | 3.88 |
| 2025 | 1.94 | 1.35 | 4.18 | 1.00 | 2.47 | 4.53 | 2.76 | 3.76 |
