After earning three straight runner-up finishes in the opening phase of the 2026 250SX West Region Supercross Championship, Levi Kitchen tapped a higher gear at the latest round of the fray when he battled ferociously with championship leader Haiden Deegan at the Seattle Supercross. Pushed on mightily by the roaring Lumen Field faithful, the Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki rider raced to a second place finish.

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“I think that’s the race everyone has been waiting for,” said Kitchen afterwards. “I’m bummed I couldn’t get it done for the hometown, but I rode my heart out and Deegan did too. That had to be the coolest race of my life. We were going at it the whole time. Thanks to everyone here in Seattle, they were amazing. That was fun.”

This Saturday, Kitchen will line up for the 250SX East/West Showdown round set for Protective Stadium in Birmingham, Alabama. He talked about his season thus far as he finished up a week of testing and training back in Florida.

“I am actually over at Nick Romano’s place right now,” said Kitchen a few days out from the Birmingham round. “We got a bunch of rain in Florida, so I came out here this morning and drained some puddles. It was the only thing rideable, so we just started and it just kind of got my day going. I love it here. I like it a lot. First I was in Louisiana and got used to the humidity, then I moved to Florida. I’m used to it all. I’ve been around here for probably five years now. I like it. I think when racing is all done and everything like that, I would like to have a place out here somewhere. I like it. The weather can be kind of brutal. It can be hot.”

Six rounds into the 250SX West championship campaign, Kitchen is positioned in fifth place overall in the point table.

“As far as the year so far, it hasn’t been great, but I think my riding has been pretty good,” Kitchen explained. “Unfortunately, three weekends in a row down in the first turn is crazy. The one at Anaheim hurt me quite a bit with not finishing. I’d probably be sitting okay if it wasn’t for that one. But as far as positives, I feel good on the bike and we’ve had a couple good rounds there at the end. It bothers me that there is three second place finishes, but I guess it’s better than three thirds or whatever. Yeah, I feel like it was good to battle in Seattle. It feels like forever ago now. Yeah, it was good to have a good race there. I’m really looking forward to the weekend. We’ll have everybody there and it will be fun.”

Immediately after the Seattle round, both Deegan and Kitchen pointed out that the race between them was the fiercest of their careers. Kitchen reflected back on the battle of 68,740-seat Lumen Field.

“Yeah, it was an exciting one for sure,” said Kitchen. “Especially in front of the hometown. It was pretty chaotic with all the people, but it was a lot of fun. Me and Haiden kept it somewhat clean, I guess you could say. Nobody went on the ground, but we were doing some pretty crazy stuff. But it was fun. The track was super-rutted. It was slow and technical, so you could kind of do what we were doing. If it was a higher speed track, it would have been a little more dangerous. It was a good time. A really good time.”

What did he and Deegan say to each other when they bumped fists immediately after the finish line?

“Honestly, I don’t even really remember what he said,” answered Kitchen. “I mean there was nothing bad. We were basically both just kind of stoked because the race was crazy. We were almost in shock when we got off the track with what had just happened. Yeah, it was all good things, if I remember correctly. Obviously we’ve had our incidents in the past, but after a race like that, it’s kind of hard to not respect each other. It was pretty crazy.”

Fifth in 250SX West points with four rounds remaining, Kitchen is still determined to climb up the leader board as high as possible before the checkered flag comes down at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, Utah on May 9.

“I mean, I’m going to keep trying the best I can, but we’re definitely going to need a bike malfunction or something. I’ve had better years and some worse. If it was the 450 class, a lot of people have had a mishap and still won a 450 championship. It’s really tough to do in the Lites class. There have been years where obviously it has happened, but Haiden has won everything except for one race. I don’t know. For me big picture is to go and try to keep getting better and better. Really, that’s what’s motivating me now: trying to get better.”