Ian Harrison, Team Manager of the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing Team, issued a statement regarding Chase Sexton’s crash at Ironman Raceway, round nine of the 2025 Pro Motocross Championship. Sexton won the opening moto but crashed early in the second race and did not finish. His 1-40 scores put him 10th overall. *Update: Sexton has since posted an update to his personal Instagram writing that he will not be lining up for the final two rounds of the season and will focus on recovering for the SMX Playoffs.
“Good day going at Ironman until it wasn’t, going 1-DNF on the day,” Sexton wrote. “Brake malfunction second moto was out of mine and Jade Dungey’s control and for me I was just a passenger at that point and I tried all I could do to save it. With that being said I’m still encouraged by my riding and am happy with how it was going up until that point. As far as my body goes my right shoulder is weak from the crash and am getting it looked at this week. With that being said it’s in my best interest to get ready for SMX and come in at 100%. Just want to say thank you to the fans for always having my back and I can’t wait to see y’all in Charlotte.”
On Saturday after the race Harrison commented, “He [Sexton] lost control over the jump. I did not see it exactly – but afterwards I could see that he couldn’t get going as the front brake was jammed on. It was unclear at that time when it’d happened, but judging from when we got to the bike, it looks to be that the brake packed full of mud, and that was the after-effect of the crash. Leading up to the crash, we’re still unclear of exactly what happened, but it does look like we could be dealing with debris in the brakes from the track, and if that’s the case, we need to come up with a solution on how to prevent this in the future.”
He later added, “After inspecting the bike Saturday evening, and reviewing the bike data, we now have a clearer understanding of what led up to Chase’s crash in moto two at Ironman, and I want to clarify that it was neither rider nor mechanic error.
Initially, we thought it was a front brake issue, but we now know that debris got into the rear brake system, preventing Chase from activating the rear brake. This forced him to reduce all his speed using only the front brake. We can also see from the bike data that he left the jump on this lap at a much higher rate of speed than at any other lap during the day.
This issue, in turn, caused Chase to crash. The bike landed on the right side first, which then caused the front brake lever to get packed with mud and activate. Chase was unable to continue because of this.
We will actively look for a solution to prevent this from happening again, but as we know, in racing, motocross is tough on the equipment, and when you add the speed and intensity that our riders race at, this exaggerates everything. This was disappointing for both Chase and our team, as well as the fans.”
