Vital MX Awards Show, Part 3: Racer of the Year

You’ve made your selections, cast your ballots, and we’ve got the final results for the first two categories in our first-ever Vital MX Awards. So what do you say we hand out the hardware, and hear from some of the recipients.

But first, here’s a little bit about how we determined the winners. We combined the results of on-site polling from readers, a select group of industry folks, and the Vital MX staff. We used a formula where the Vital MX members counted toward 60% of the result, and the industry folks and Vital MX staff each accounted for 20% of the final say.

Only one category of the Vital MX Awards was unanimous among the readers, industry and staff, and that was for the Racer of the Year, which went to Jeffrey Herlings.

Jeffrey Herlings was impressive throughout 2018, battling to his first MXGP crown and taking 17 of 20 races, while overcoming a broken collarbone along the way. To cap it off, he went 1-1 in the MXGP class at the MXoN at RedBud, while scoring a close second-place finish for the Dutch team, even with only two riders competing. The third member of the team, Calvin Vlaanderen, had to sit out due to an eye injury. We recently had a Facetime conversation with Jeffrey, which you can see below.

While Jeffrey may have been a bit surprised to have so many American fans vote for him, it’s notable how many of them paid attention to the MXGPs, and that they recognized Jeffrey’s achievements. With Jeffrey taking just over 60% of the available ballots, the remaining trio of riders battled it out for the remaining spots. Eli Tomac was second in the voting with about 12.7 percent of the vote, followed by Jason Anderson (11.3%), and Aaron Plessinger (9.4%).