2021 AMA Supercross, an FIM World Champion
WEBB BACK ON TOP!
After losing his 450cc AMA Supercross FIM World Championship last year following a championship that was heavily rejigged due to the pandemic, Cooper Webb (Red Bull KTM) started the 2021 season as a man on a mission.
Already a four-time AMA champion with three 250cc titles – two supercross and one motocross – plus the 2019 450cc supercross championship under his belt, Webb is a proven winner, so he was devastated to see Eli Tomac (Kawasaki) relieve him of his 450cc SX crown last season – and was determined to make amends.
The championship called in at seven venues with a series of triple and double-headers punctuated by a single night at the infamous Daytona International Speedway. This meant much less travelling than pre-pandemic, but the championship remained incredibly intense with seventeen rounds shoehorned into just fifteen weeks making it a real war of attrition.
Webb had to wait until the third and final round in Houston’s NRG Stadium at the start of the series before he won, let alone finished on the podium, but this victory kickstarted his championship campaign.
Two podiums out of a possible three in Indianapolis kept him in contention and he then shifted into a higher gear, winning both nights in Orlando, finishing second at Daytona and sweeping Arlington with a hat-trick.
The final five rounds were spread between Atlanta and Salt Lake City and saw Webb take two more wins and finish off the podium just once to claim the title by a comfortable thirty-five points to avenge his 2020 defeat.
PALMARES
AMA West Coast Lites SX Champion - 2016, 2015
AMA 250 National MX Champion - 2016
2019 AMA SUPERCROSS, AN FIM WORLD CHAMPION
WEBB IS NEW SUPERSTAR OF SUPERCROSS
Cooper Webb (KTM) confirmed his status as off-road racing’s new superstar, lifting the AMA Supercross FIM World Championship after a sensational 2019 season. Webb, who won his first amateur national championship at the age of six and was the AMA Youth Motocross Rider of the Year in 2010 before turning professional three years later, stepped up to the 450SX class in 2017, earning his first podium during an injury-hit rookie season.
With only one podium to show for his 2018 efforts and following an inauspicious start to 2019, which wielded a fifth and a tenth at Anaheim I and Glendale, few could have predicted the sheer dominance that was to follow. A first ever win at Anaheim II capped off an almost perfect triple crown weekend - which features three main events rather than a single main - as Webb won the first two mains and swept the podium with a third-place finish in the final.
Six more victories would follow as the twenty-three-year-old missed out on the podium on just four further occasions- Even though Eli Tomac (Kawasaki) started to threaten the North Carolinian in the closing rounds, Webb was able to manage his comfortable points lead. He eventually reached the final round in Las Vegas needing just a twentieth place finish to clinch the title, which he wrapped up with an eleventh podium finish from seventeen events.
Webb, whose father was a professional surfer and owns a surf shop in North Carolina, is the twenty-second winner in the history of AMA Supercross.
