R.J. HAMPSHIRE SIXTH IN POINTS IN HIS, SORT OF,  ROOKIE SEASON

R.J. Hampshire grabbed a fourth-place finish in the second moto at Southwick. R.J. has been racing the Nationals and Supercross series since 201. He is only a rookie to the 450 class.

A sixth-place finish overall signaled another step forward for Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing’s RJ Hampshire during Round 5 of the 2025 AMA Pro Motocross Championship at Southwick. Equipped with the Husqvarna FC 450 Factory Edition, Hampshire posted the eighth-fastest qualifying time during the morning sessions, before climbing through the field after a first-turn pile-up in Moto 1 to an impressive eighth-place result.  In Moto 2, the 29-year-old toughed out the deteriorating track conditions, racing to a season-high Moto finish of fourth position following an inspired late-race charge. Hampshire would complete the weekend in sixth overall and maintain P6 in the 450MX standings.

R.J. Hampshire said: “Pretty solid day here in Southwick, I felt good in qualifying, and then a first turn pile-up in Moto 1 had me in pretty much last place. We were strong all race to come back to eighth, and I knew all I needed was a better start for the second one. We got that, and plugged away from there on a tough track, and it feels good to get my first top-five moto score with P4 in that one. We’ll take it and look forward to RedBud next weekend.”

DEEGAN DOMINANCE CONTINUES

It was another flawless day for Haiden Deegan at Southwick.

Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing’s Haiden Deegan expanded his championship lead with a flawless performance at The Wick 338, earning his fourth overall victory of the season at Round 5 of Pro Motocross and Round 22 of the SuperMotocross World Championship in Southwick, Massachusetts.

Haiden Deegan performed his best starts of the season grabbing the holeshot in both motos.

From the first session, Deegan came out swinging. He topped both qualifying sessions by an impressive two-second margin, earning the fastest 250 qualifier honors for the third time this season. He then got a flying start to the first moto, grabbing his first holeshot of the season. The reigning 250MX Champion threw down some fast laps and continued to set a blistering pace up front, amassing a sizeable lead and winning his seventh moto of the season by a 25-second margin. In Moto 2, Deegan claimed his second holeshot of the day and once again built a gap up front early to remain unchallenged, completing a perfect day at the Southwick National with a moto sweep. The Californian has four overall victories, with 1-1 moto results, and a runner-up overall finish (2-2) so far this season, which continues to strengthen his spot at the top of the standings with a 58-point advantage in the 250MX Championship and a 116-point lead in the 250SMX combined points.

MICHAEL MOSIMAN SHOWING REAL SPEED

Michael Mosiman was on his way to a podium finish before a bike malfunction moved him back a couple of positions.

It was a day of earning season-best results for Mosiman, as he continues to build momentum in the outdoor season. After earning his best qualifying result in third, he built on that with a great start to the first moto, slotting into second. Four laps in, he found himself under pressure but continued to ride a strong pace and hold off advances from the competition. On the final lap, he unfortunately dropped back to fourth, where he would finish for the best moto result of the season. In Moto 2, he did not get off the gate as he had hoped and was ninth after the opening lap, but continued to push and steadily made his way to fifth by the halfway point. On Lap 9, he made the pass for fourth, but the competition quickly countered back. From there, he managed his race to secure fifth place and earn fourth overall, continuing his forward momentum and achieving a season-best overall result.

MXA PHOTO TRIVIA

Who is this rider? The answer is at the bottom of the article.

2026 MOTOCROSS BIKE PREVIEW: NEW TECH & 2-STROKE SURPRISES

MXA FANTASY LEAGUE – ROOST GIVEAWAY: THE WINNER OF THE SOUTHWICK NATIONAL SCORED 300 POINTS

Another great weekend of racing out at Southwick for the continuation of the 2025 motocross series. Haiden Deegan dominated the 250 class winning both motos by a large margin. Jett Lawrence did the same thing in the 450 class and also won by a large distance over the rest of the field. Hunter Lawrence put on an impressive performance as well by finishing second in both motos in the 450 class. Picks were difficult this week based of riders exchanging positions from the first moto to the second motos. We have a breakdown of how user Batey80 took the win below.

The MXA Fantasy League is partnered with On X Offroad, players can enjoy  20% off their subscription by using promo code MXA20 at checkout.

THE WINNER OF THE SOUTHWICK FANTASY LEAGUE  “BATEY80”

Batey80 grabbed the best picks this past weekend at Southwick and will be able to choose a set of graphics courtesy of Roost Mx.

WEEKLY TOP TEN

Username	Points
Batey80	300
Kirt	294
EHOLMES901	293
trimble767	293
Sheeeeessshh	293
hodgesbmx	291
Cookie	290
lromero	290
Teamjdm	288
Bliz375	287

450 CLASS PREDICTIONS

 R.J. Hampshire grabbed an impressive sixth place overall at Southwick with 8-4 moto scores. He currently sits sixth in points in his rookie season in the 450 class.

For the 450 class, Batey80 had some great picks. The most common pick for the 450 winners was Jett Lawrence. Batey80 also picked Jett to win and received 36 fantasy points. This includes a ten-point bonus for picking Jett in the correct spot. In second he picked Eli Tomac who ended up third on the day giving 21 fantasy points. In third, he picked Hunter Lawrence who placed second giving 23 fantasy points. In fourth it was Justin Cooper chosen and he did in fact finish fourth overall giving 29 fantasy points including the bonus. In fifth Jorge Prado was chosen and this was also a correct pick which gave 28 fantasy points including the bonus. Finally in sixth R.J. Hampshire was chosen this once again was a correct pick and would give 27 fantasy points including the bonus.

250 CLASS PREDICTIONS

Michael Mosiman was one of the fastest riders on the track at Southwick but a mechanical issue in Moto One hurt his chances for an overall podium finish.

In the 250 class Haiden Deegan was chosen to win and he in fact did so which gave 36 fantasy points. In the second it was Tom Vialle chosen which again was a correct pick giving 33 fantasy points. In third Seth Hammaker was chosen but unfortunately, he was out of the top six, placing eighth on the day, and would give no fantasy points. In fourth Michael Mosiman was chosen. This was another correct prediction and would give 29 fantasy points including the bonus. In fifth Mikkel Haarup was picked which would give 18 fantasy points. And finally in sixth Levi Kitchen was picked. He finished third on the day which would give 21 fantasy points.

STATS AFTER SOUTHWICK

Haiden Deegan grabbed his eleventh career 250MX win this past weekend tying Jeff Ward on the all-time win list.

In total Haiden Deegan has twenty-nine 250mx starts, he has twenty podiums, and twenty-two top-five finishes in his career. Deegan on his Yamaha has won back-to-back at Southwick in years 24 and 25. He is the first Yamaha rider to do so and only the fifth rider ever. Yamaha now has 120, 250mx wins and is third on the all-time win list.

Jett dominated at Southwick winning both motos by around fifteen seconds.

Jett Lawrence’s win at Southwick was his twentieth win in 450MX in just twenty-one starts. He now has tied James Stewart with twenty wins, however, it took James fifty-one starts to reach twenty wins. This is truly incredible riding from Jett Lawrence.

TWO-STROKE SPOTLIGHT: HORST LEITNER’S RADICAL AMP RESEARCH KTM 125SX PROTOTYPE

Built under commission from KTM as the “125 of the future,” Horst’s 1990 AMP Research 125 weighed under 190 pounds thanks to its minimalistic chromoly parallax frame design

At the 1989 Milan Motorcycle show in Italy, then KTM owners (Git Trust) approached AMP Research’s Horst Leitner to build them a prototype of the 125 two-stroke of the future. Horst was one of the most successful independent motorcycle designer of the 1980s and 1990s. He founded ATK Motorcycles, which built the 406 two-stroke and 605 four-stroke, also the Scott/PBH for England and the Avenger for the USA. The carrot at the end of the stick wasn’t the money that KTM agreed to pay Horst for the one-off machine, but the chance to design future KTM models.

Why was KTM’s management going outside of their own corporation to hire an independent motorcycle designer? After all, they had a bevy of designers and engineers in their employ in Mattighofen. The new investors suspected that KTM’s in-house design staff had failed to deliver stellar products in the past and didn’t want to trust their sizable investment in the company to the same men who had failed to deliver for the old owners. They wanted to bring in a “Pro from Dover.” They chose Horst Leitner as a way of showing the existing KTM designers that their jobs weren’t safe. The new owners reasoned that outside competition, especially since he was a fellow Austrian, would wake up their Austrian design team. The decision to ask Horst Leitner to design a totally new bike had more to do with bureaucratic politics than a search for creativity.

Before the AMP Research 125 KTM project was started, Horst built a full-size mock-up—that included most of the strategic points and cardboard radiator wings.

KTM told Horst that he had to use as many existing KTM 125SX components as possible, and that included the forks, wheels, swingarm, brakes, ignition and complete KTM 125 two-stroke engine. These were nonnegotiable parts, but everything else was fair game. And, Horst played fast and loose with the rules as laid out.

The AMP Research frame used three chromoly tubes, two rectangular and one round) to comprise 95% of the frame. It used one long radiator on the right side and the pipe went up and under the left side radiator shroud.

When the AMP Research KTM 125 was completed, it was almost space age for the time. It was incredibly small. Not small as in petite, but every aspect of the AMP Research bike was greatly reduced in size. The frame was something that Horst called a “parallax” frame. It was made up of only two main tubes, plus the stock KTM head/down tube. The two backbone tubes were large-diameter, rectangular, chromoly spars that were straight and true — sans any bends. The KTM 125 engine was used as a true stressed member of the overall layout. There were no down tubes on Horst’s frame, and the footpegs and swingarm pivots mounted to uprights that also served to hold a CNC-machined aluminum bridge that tied the bottom of the frame together. It was simple in design but intricate in terms of engineering savvy. To remove the complete engine from the AMP Research 125, all a mechanic had to do was pull the swingarm pivot bolt and front motor-mount bolts. Gravity took care of the rest.

The rear suspension was the first-ever no-link, single-sided, laid-down-shock motocross suspension ever designed. The rear suspension got its rising rate from the position of the shock in relationship to the swingarm pivot and top shock mount. Note the silencer exiting behind the engine

This unique chromoly frame came seven years before the era of twin-spar aluminum frames. Ahead of its time, the parallax frame was the most visible part of the 125 prototype but not the most inventive. It was feather light, extremely narrow and like no other bike made 34 years ago. 

The silencer did not extend out the back of the AMP Research 125, but instead was routed downwards through the swingarm.

Before the AMP Reaserch 125 was shipped to Austrian, Horst took the precaution of having MXA race it and photograph to insure a record  of how the bike performed before being handed over to KTM. The next day the AMP Research KTM 125 was shipped to Austria for R&D testing in 1990. But, it never really stood a chance of going into production. Why not? In one of those catch-22s that can only happen in the corporate world, KTM’s management assigned their in-house design department—the one they were trying to embarrass—to evaluate the prototype. This fail-safe was all the threatened engineers needed to ensure job security.

The 1990 AMP Research 125 in flight.

They nitpicked the AMP Research prototype to death and even took the time to photograph every interference fit, crack in the aluminum airbox mount and even a head tube crack (even though it was their head tube). In the end, the AMP Research prototype was rolled into a dark warehouse and disappeared forever. Until 30 years later.

AND NOW FOR THE REST OF THE STORY…FAST FORWARD 35 YEARS

This is the AMP Research prototype as it looks today. Although a few parts are missing, there is nothing major. In truth, it looks as though it has not been ridden more than one hour in the last 35 years. Even the original numbers are still on the front plate.

After 30 years of silence, Harry Leitner, son of ATK and AMP Research founder Horst Leitner, got a Facebook message from an Austrian motorcycle racer named Hanson Schruf asking about a bike he had—that Hanson, who worked as a test rider at KTM found abandoned in the warehouse. He thought it was the special one-off 1990 KTM prototype and sent photos to Harry Leitner. Harry recognized the bike immediately as the special project that his father Horst had built in AMP Research’s Laguna Beach facility under contract to KTM back in 1989.

Although the cone pipe is a little corroded, the fiberglass fuel tank, original seat and all the plastic remain intact. Those are even the original KTM radiator wing decals that were put on before the bike was shipped from Laguna Beach to Austria in 1990.

Horst designed and built the bike because KTM’s then-owners wanted the “125 of the future” to show their engineers about the possibilities in motorcycle design. When Horst was finished building the bike, Horst told MXA that they could could shake it down before it was crated up and shipped to Austria. In hindsight it was a good thing that Horst gave the bike to MXA before he gave it to KTM, because once the bike got to Austria it was never seen again—until Hanson Schruff sent these photos to Harry Leitner.

Austrian racer Hanson Schruf ended up with the prototype 30 years after it disappeared and contacted Horst Leitner’s eldest son Harry to find out more about it. That was the first time the Leitner’s had heard anything about or seen the bike since they built it.

The AMP prototype bike was largely intact. The paint on the frame showed wear marks on the trailing edge behind the footpegs. The pipe had rusted, but there were no wear marks on it. Even the fiberglass radiator wings and gas tank were barely scuffed. The 34 year-old seat looked like it had never been ridden. Makes you wonder how  much time KTM’s 1990 engineers put into actually testing the bike.

CLASSIC MXA PHOTO

Tim Ferry riding a 1996 Factory Suzuki wearing JT gear and Sidi boots. It’s amazing how much the boots have changed over time.

MXA Photo Trivia Answer: Andrew Short who went on to sixteen years of professional racing.