AUSX OPEN

A promoter's event, built around a homecoming

The AUS-X Open was staged for the first time on Saturday 28 November 2015 at Allphones Arena, inside Sydney Olympic Park, and the pitch was straightforward: take the Australian Supercross Championship indoors, put a returning star at the centre of it and sell the night as a show rather than a race meeting. The star was Chad Reed. He won the SX1 main event ahead of Gavin Faith and Dan Reardon, with Cooper Webb fourth, then beat Ricky Carmichael in a head-to-head exhibition race built purely for the occasion. Jimmy Decotis won SX2 from Wade Hunter and Jackson Richardson. Matt Moss crashed heavily in the main event and was taken away by the medical crew. A second night of racing followed on the Sunday, outside the championship standings.

The event has been run since by AME Management — Adam Bailey, now the chief executive of AUSX, and event director Ryan Sanderson — and the shape set in 2015 has not changed much: one headline weekend, imported names racing the locals, freestyle and paddock access filling the gaps between races. Kardinia Park Stadium Trust describes the 2026 edition as the eleventh year of the event.

Marvel Stadium and the biggest crowd the sport has had in Australia

The move out of arenas and onto a stadium floor is what changed the scale of it. On 30 November 2024 the AUS-X Open closed the five-round Fox Australian Supercross Championship at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, running three races per class on the night. Hunter Lawrence won the final SX1 race ahead of Jed Beaton and Dean Wilson, while Joey Savatgy took the SX1 title on 115 points, Shane McElrath the SX2 crown and Seth Burchell SX3. More than 42,000 spectators turned up, the largest supercross crowd recorded in the country. Hunter Lawrence described it afterwards as an unreal adrenaline rush, and said having the country behind him was unreal; Jett Lawrence said the feeling was something no amount of money could buy, and rated it above their championships.

The 2025 edition, at Marvel Stadium on 22 November, drew more than 30,000 and went to Jett Lawrence, who won both SX1 finals at the third attempt — "Third time's the charm," he said — from Dean Wilson and his brother Hunter. Cole Thompson took SX2 ahead of McElrath and Ryder Kingsford, with Ryder Malinoski winning SX3. The track used 6,500 tonnes of dirt and was billed as the biggest supercross circuit built outside the United States. The programme carried freestyle motocross, live music and a lap of honour for Australia's Motocross of Nations-winning trio of Jett, Hunter and Kyle Webster, with the crowd holding up phone lights. The mcnews recap read the presentation as familiar and professional rather than over-the-top American production.

Geelong, and a floor big enough for the track they wanted

The 2026 Boost Mobile AUSX Open, presented by Monster Energy, runs at GMHBA Stadium on Saturday 7 November, the first time the event has been held in Geelong, with financial backing from Visit Victoria and Geelong Major Events. The promoter says the increase in floor space allows the largest and most dynamic track in the event's eleven-year history, alongside an open pit paddock and an expanded Monster Energy Fan Fest. The Minister for Tourism, Natalie Suleyman, framed the deal in local terms, saying the event would fill Geelong's hotels, cafes and small businesses with visitors. The stadium lists the event from midday.

The venue change came out of a wider expansion announced on 28 May 2026, which took the championship from four rounds to five, returned it to New Zealand for the first time since 2019 and to Western Australia for the first time in over a decade. Bailey's reasoning at the time: "It's critical for us to strike the balance between incredible world-class venues and regions hungry for supercross, action sports and entertainment."

Who is racing it

Roczen headlines as the 2026 Monster Energy AMA Supercross champion, a title he sealed in May in Salt Lake City, nine years after the arm injury he suffered in 2017. "Winning the AMA Supercross Championship this year was one of the proudest moments of my career," he said when the booking was announced.

Barcia was confirmed on 20 October 2026, riding a Twisted Tea Suzuki presented by Progressive Insurance alongside Roczen, for what will be his first Australian supercross start. He had been announced for the 2018 AUS-X Open in Sydney and withdrew for eye surgery. "I was meant to race in Australia back in 2018, so it's always felt like unfinished business for me," he said. Bailey's line on the signing was that Barcia is aggressive, unpredictable and never backs down.

Jo Shimoda, on a Honda HRC Progressive machine, makes both his 450 and his Australian debut at the event, and Cole Davies was announced in July for the smaller class. Of the riders already in the series, Christian Craig, Cedric Soubeyras and Luke Clout are the names the domestic running order is built around.

The championship it sits in the middle of

Round one ran at Queensland Country Bank Stadium in Townsville on Saturday 3 October 2026 in front of 16,095 spectators. Craig was fastest qualifier at 47.013 and went 1-1, winning the first final by 8.213 seconds from Soubeyras and Jorge Zaragoza, and the second by 6.599 seconds from Clout and Soubeyras. That left the SX1 standings at Craig 50, Soubeyras 42, Clout 40, Zaragoza 36 and Hayden Mellross 34.

SX2 went to Brodie Connolly on a 1-3 scorecard, the second final won by Max Anstie and reordered by a five-position penalty handed to Michael Hicks for jumping under a waved medical flag: Connolly 45, Lux Turner 38, Hicks 35. The new SMX Next Australia class — created under a partnership with the SuperMotocross League announced on 3 September 2026, and intended as a feeder into the SMX World Championship — went to Jack Nunn, who took the holeshot and led all ten laps.

Round two is at North Harbour Stadium in Auckland on 31 October, which makes Geelong round three of five, followed by Perth on 14 November and Newcastle on 28 November. The AUSX Open is not a title decider, then, but it is the round the series is selling hardest.

The format on race night

Each premier class runs qualifying, heat races, a last chance qualifier and Superpole before two finals, with the round result taken from the combined finishes rather than a single main event. Superpole sets gate order. SMX Next runs a single ten-lap final. The double-final structure means the headline internationals are on track repeatedly through the evening rather than once, which is the main reason the night reads as a show.

Geelong opens from midday with Fan Fest outside the stadium, open paddock access and rider signings, with the stadium programme — racing plus a freestyle motocross show — in the evening. What recent coverage keeps coming back to is the crowd rather than the production: 42,000-plus in 2024 and 30,000-plus in 2025, with the mcnews write-up of the 2025 night noting the Lawrence brothers riding calmly and comfortably in front of a home stadium, Jett adding whips and last-lap celebrations once the result was safe.