redictions are garbage in this sport, because injuries are garbage too. We start each season with educated guesses, but even lots of data on lots of riders will prove inaccurate once people start getting hurt. And they will. And at the strangest time to the strangest people.

Case in point: the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing team, which featured two 450 riders. By round four of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship in Oakland, both were out.

Jason Anderson’s consistency has been a hallmark of his career, so much so that I wrote and spoke countless words trying to convey this point. Actually, I’ll just crib what I wrote in an Anderson feature in this magazine two months ago: “While Anderson—all long hair, scraggly beard, untucked jersey, and wide-open style—might appear to be a wild man, he’d also proven incredibly consistent throughout his 450 career. After joining the 450 class full-time in 2015, he’s missed just one race due to injury (the ’15 Las Vegas main event, after he’d hit his head early in the day). He was also DQ’d from Anaheim 2 in 2016 after taking a swing at Vince Friese. Further, in the last three seasons, Anderson has only finished outside the top ten twice.”

Well, he added another sub-top-ten with a 14th at the 2019 opener in Anaheim. Then Anderson crashed on the Monday after round three, breaking his arm and surrendering his title defense. Oakland marked Anderson’s first 450SX no-show since moving to the class in 2015. So much for using history as a guide.

I had spent most of the off-season campaigning for Anderson’s consistency. I predicted he would win the title again on our preseason videos and podcasts. I wrote the feature two months ago to explain his solidity. Days before Anaheim 1, I pitched Anderson and Eli Tomac as the modern version of the classic racing paradigm: Eli’s speed versus Jason’s consistency.

Turns out Eli is consistent, and Jason is out.

Anderson’s 450 teammate is Zach Osborne, the 29-year-old rookie. Because of his age and experience, Osborne wasn’t projected as a typical 450 first-timer, full of flash and crash. He was seasoned, smart, calculated . . . and then he crashed a few weeks before Anaheim and bent a plate in his collarbone. Zach tried rehab in hopes of making it to Anaheim but finally settled on surgery and missed races. Rockstar Husky, as rock-solid as it comes, was down to zero 450 riders at round four.

Next door, Dean Wilson was pitting with his own Husqvarna (with Rockstar backing) out of his van. The factory squad offered him a fill-in slot when Osborne went down, but Dean wanted to stick with his personal sponsors. With Anderson out for an even longer span, Wilson will probably work it all out and end up in the factory truck eventually. Driving the van to Minneapolis in February, or New Jersey in April, is daunting.

So Wilson will likely become a savior. He was actually ahead of Anderson in the points even before Anderson got hurt. He’s become the solid choice for a team wiped out by injuries. But isn’t it interesting, then, that Dean ended up off the factory gravy train because of his own injury problems? Years of jacked-up knees and shoulders are what led to pitting out of a van in the first place. Now he’s the man keeping Husqvarna at the front while the other guys recover.

As for the rest of the series? Ken Roczen, who made it through three races in 2017 and five in 2018, held the early points lead, and Eli Tomac, dinged over and over again for consistency woes, stood second. Eli and Ken didn’t even win races while moving to the top spots; they used a steady hand to build their case.

Yup, pretty much exactly the opposite of what has happened before. Go ahead and make the most educated guesses you want. They’re all just guesses.