Reigning champion Lachlan Turner wins 2026 WMX opener
Yamaha’s Lachlan Turner, the reigning back-to-back champion, was victorious in the opening round of the 2026 Women’s Motocross Championship, which came down to a pair of tightly contested races.
The race began with Turner leading the field to the holeshot ahead of Honda’s Charli Cannon and Kawasaki’s Taylah McCutcheon, who made her U.S. debut. As Turner was ahead, she went down and gave up the lead but was able to quickly remount in fourth place.
Turner was able to march back to the front. She got by both Nielsen and McCutchen on the same lap to climb from fourth to second and eventually closed in on Cannon. The closing laps featured an all-out battle between the two, with Turner able to pull off a last-lap pass that forced Cannon to take evasive action.
The come-from-behind effort gave Turner the win by just 5.6 seconds over Cannon, with Nielsen third. McCutcheon finished fourth in her first WMX moto.
In the second and deciding moto, Turner again withstood Cannon’s pressure to put the finishing touch on a sweep of the motos by a mere 0.781 tenths over her Honda counterpart. Nielsen finished a distant third.
What’s next
The 2026 Women’s Motocross Championship Powered by Synchrony will continue next weekend with Round 2 from Colorado’s Thunder Valley Motocross Park. The WMX will be a part of the Toyota Thunder Valley National with two days of racing. Moto 1 will take place on June 12, with Moto 2 alongside the Pro Motocross Championship on June 13. Live coverage of the second moto can be seen on Peacock as part of the network’s comprehensive coverage of Thunder Valley that begins at 12 p.m. PT / 3 p.m. ET.
