When we gave Joel Smets a call this week and asked him about many different topics, one was the current running of the world supercross championship. Smets, like many of us love all types of racing and while he was never a supercross specialist, his insight into the 2025 series is an interesting one.

Clearly, the series isn’t completely in its final stages of becoming a real world supercross championship and there are many question marks about its future. I asked Smets what his opinion of the series was and I led in with a positive attitude, as I have found many things interesting and good for the sport, but Joel wasn’t having it and was rather critical or not only the world supercross championship, but also how many different champions there are in the American series.

Joel Smets: Geoff, I followed it (WSX), and I don’t agree with you, I am crying when I see the images. I saw Stockholm, I saw Canada. Of course, when Eli is there and Kenny is there or Haiden Deegan, just those three, on a motocross track I am enjoying it, just as a pure motocross fan. In general, I am really confused which way our sport is going. I am already confused with the SMX in US, I find it confusing. At the moment, in the US, listen, they have East and West supercross, that is two championships, then they have 450 supercross, 450 outdoors, 250 outdoors, SMX 250 and SMX 450 championships. That is seven championships, technically, you can have seven American champions, that for me is confusing. There are too many commercial aspects. You also see it with Red Bull and Monster, they make so much money, and they need to spend it somewhere. In my eyes, I am a bit friends with Davey Coombs, but I don’t know the people are behind all these championships.

As a motocross fan when I was younger, there was Jeremy McGrath or Steve Lamson, and that was it, you had supercross and motocross and that was it and it was all clear. But now, for example, Tom Vialle is a supercross champion and he was forgotten before the championship even ended. Geoff, that isn’t good for the sport.

Then you hear them talking about the two time world supercross champion, Ken Roczen, but sorry, I don’t know how that sounds to you Geoff, but Ken Roczen might be the world champion, but now Jason Anderson is leading the championship from Christian Craig. Sorry, you need to be honest with yourself. I had a long meeting with Kurt Nicoll and he is involved and he gets good money for that, nothing against Kurt, but I told him the same thing, I told him that this might work for money, but it isn’t promoting the sport.

It is really strange, but one week these riders and another week these riders. In Stockholm there were 13 riders on the gate, it almost gets as bad as MXGP. Sorry, I didn’t watch all the races from Sweden, I watched the final, with Anderson and Savatgy and Craig, but all respect to those guys, which is a level of the King of Dortmund in Germany. It isn’t much more than that and to call it a world championship….So, we have the two more champions, so maybe Max Anstie and Jason Anderson, and then in Europe we add to more champions an in our sport, so many champions, it’s confusing.

I am not sure how popular supercross is. It is a little like the type of sport, where the American fans go one week to watch NFL and then maybe the next week, they go to the same stadium to watch supercross. You really don’t know if they are motocross fans or NFL fans. Old school motocross still has that firm fan base and the real sport lovers. I think the fans or supercross is a mixture of dirt bike fans, but also fans who just go once a year and they also find supercross cool.

We have no supercross track in Belgium and Holland and that says something. Supercross will never have a successful world championship and because what you said, about occasional supercross fans and if you want to succeed, you need to have the best riders there. I think if Giuseppe (Luongo) works with the Americans to make a real championship, with all the best riders in the world, then maybe younger kids like Kay De Wolf, the Coenen brothers and then you have a championship with the best American and the best European riders. You could have a motocross world championship with 10 or 12 rounds, from March until June and from August to October, you could have a supercross championship with another 12 rounds, with all those riders. Then the American’s can do their supercross championship in our winter. Returning to world supercross, that last track that Eli raced (in Australia), the track was so dusty and slippery. Honestly, for me, that WSX is a bit of a joke. We also have to consider US is another world. F1 a lot of Americans know Lando Norris is the new world champion, but they don’t really care so much, and their Indy 500 winner is way more popular in America.