“I just want to win,” said Deegan. It’s miserable not to win.

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Regardless of the coast he was on and the opponent he faced, Haiden Deegan was the overwhelming preseason favourite to win the Monster Energy AMA Supercross 250SX title. Even if he is still the favourite in this 250SX West Region, the season has undoubtedly not gone as planned, and his odds are starting to decline.

To put it mildly, Deegan’s performance in San Diego was mediocre. He ran third in the whoops after qualifying first and having the quickest lap of his heat by more over a second. He started the main event in ninth place and gradually moved up to third. Once more, Deegan recorded the fastest lap of the race, but he was never able to close enough of a gap to the leader to threaten for the victory.

Haiden expressed his dissatisfaction with the outcome of the race in his podium TV interview with Jason Thomas, stating, “First off, congrats to JuJu, that was a great race on him.” I’m sorry you all had to witness that, but I just… embarrassed you, dude. It started out a bit hyped up and continued from there. I can only put in more effort this week and finish strong.

Deegan finished third in San Diego

“I actually had a pretty good jump on the start then I ended up wheelieing a little bit, I just got my shift a little too quick,” Deegan said in the post-race press conference, discussing his bad start. Ty [Masterpool], who was kind of behind me, ran inside, so I followed him. When he second-guessed the triple, I thought it wouldn’t be worth falling on him if he did, so I took care to get out of his way.

We heard Haiden discuss his struggles with arm pump for what may have been the first time in his career. “The boys rode well today, I was a little restricted, and I got to work on this arm pump, which is something I really struggled with,” he said during the news conference. We’ll work it out; it’s not a problem we haven’t encountered before.

Haiden stressed, “I just want to win,” when asked whether his difficult start to the season worried him in the least. It’s awful not to win. I go through these weeks and I think, “It’s terrible, man, but we’ll work it out.” It will shortly get here. It was still a podium, so at least we made it through this round safely. All we need to do is find out how to reach the top step.

After two rounds, Deegan trails Julien Beaumer by 10 points in the championship

“I need to get my stride back, but I feel most of the pressure is handed over to JuJu now to go perform, so yeah, I obviously have to go perform as well, so it’s time to lock back in and figure out what we need to fix,” he said when asked about the pressure of being the title favourite.

The youthful sensation has had a humble beginning to the competition. His interview tone lacked confidence, despite the fact that he had produced the quickest lap in qualifying. It will be interesting to watch Deegan’s reaction in Anaheim the following weekend. Will he be able to slow down Julien Beaumer’s momentum and ultimately reach the top step of the podium?