ANAHEIM, California: Jordon Smith is preparing for his 450 debut on the Factory Triumph in the Monster Energy Supercross season as he makes graduates from the 250 division.
Smith will not make the season opener at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California, due to a shoulder injury suffered in the SuperMotocross League finale at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but anticipates lining up as early as February or as late as March.
“So the timeline to get going is I go back to the doctor December 29th and hoping after that to get cleared to start just some easy turn track stuff, get back on the bike a little bit and start progressing from there,” Smith said during a pre-season media session. “And a return sometime, hopefully in February. I would say the earliest return timeline sometime between late January and March. [That’s] kind of a big window there, but it’s a new bike. We’re going have a lot of testing styles ... but there’ll be a lot of a learning curve for me getting used to the bike and stuff.
“So it’s a little bit up in the air on the exact race that I’ll be coming back, but somewhere around there.”
The official announcement that Smith would race in the 450 division was late in coming, although it was rumored during the 2025 SMX playoffs. A shoulder injury in the finale added to the uncertainty.
According to Smith, the plan was always to make the move up to the premier division.
“Yeah, towards the end of the year it was pretty much always 450, Smith said. “Just hadn’t announced it yet, but the plan, whole kind of end of outdoors and SMX was always 450.”
Knowing he would fail to make the season-opener, Smith was prepared to make a decision between riding in the 250 East division of Supercross since it starts much later in the season than either 250 West or 450s.
“I felt that they may ask me if I wanted to [switch to 250 East], but I think that we all think it would be best just to go ahead and get on the 450 start building in the Supercross and then be a hundred percent ready to go into outdoors,” Smith said.
For Smith, the decision was easy.
“I was ready to go the full 450 deal; we were kind of bouncing back and forth and just trying to see what would be best for myself and for the team,” Smith said. “And I didn’t necessarily have too much of a preference as far as Supercross goes. For outdoors, I definitely wanted to be on the 450. I’m excited to be on the 450. Ultimately that was my number one decision was to go ahead and move up and I’m excited that it worked out.”
Triumph debuted in SuperMotocross at the beginning of the 2024 season with a single 250 rider. Jalek Swoll gave them top-10 finishes in both the Supercross East and Pro Motocross series, but in a calculated effort, the manufacturer’s growth was steady.
At the beginning of 2025, Triumph expanded to a four-rider 250 team as development on the 450 continued. Smith was part of that four-rider lineup.
“I mean for me coming from [Yamaha Star Racing] and moving to Triumph, it was kind of a big jump and I had an offer to stay with Star longer, so to make that jump, some people said that I wouldn’t be competitive or maybe they wouldn’t have to worry about me on a Triumph,” Smith said. “And I went there with very open-minded. I enjoy the process of trying this, trying that, doing some of the testing stuff and having kind of a say in the direction of how I want my bike to handle and all that stuff.”
Smith finished in the top 10 in championship points in all three SuperMotocross series in 2025 and gave Triumph its first Supercross win in the Glendale, Arizona, Triple Crown race.
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