Slaw
I think we tend to forget sometimes how dominate Jett Lawrence has been during his brief tenure in the 450 Class of Pro Motocross. Consider this: after his 1-1 performance at Hangtown on Saturday, Jett now has 19 (!!!!!) 1-1 performances in his career. If that doesn’t explain his dominance, maybe this will: he has 25 wins in just 29 premier class starts.
Jett’s return at Fox Raceway brought plenty of questions following an off-season injury: would he return to Jett speed? Would he ever be the same again?
Those, and more, were silenced at Hangtown, as Jett was doing Jett things in just his second race back and won his first overall of 2026 over his brother Hunter, who continues to lead the points chase after going 2-2 on the day. All this comes as Jett says his ankle still isn’t 100%.
“I wouldn’t say my ankle’s great,” he said. “It still hurts. It was good then, like I said earlier, I think this track kind of helps it out a bit. I could manage my foot. Pala had way too many obstacles for my foot, but yeah, it’s good. A good day.”
There is still a very long way to go in this championship, but for at least a week anyway, Jett looked very Jett like. A scary thought for the rest of the field.
He spoke with the media following the race.
A little bit of an old-time battle here, 250 days to see you guys go at it. You were pretty honest about everything, about not being sure how things are going to go, but seeing what we were used to seeing from you. Anything different in particular? Starts? What’s the difference today compared to last week?
Jett Lawrence: Yeah, I worked on my starts a lot this week. I didn’t ride as much to try and save my ankle as well, but starts were a big thing. Starting up there helps a lot, especially with HJ, with how good his starts are, and yeah, I honestly think this ankle, this track looked after my ankle a lot more as well. I had a lot of resting areas where I could rest my foot, and in braking bumps, it kind of doesn’t hurt as much, so it’s not too bad. So it definitely worked out in my favor with how the track was.
Did going quickest [in qualification] give you confidence for the rest of the day, or did you really come in thinking you could do what you’ve done and go 1-1?
I definitely think coming in, it’s definitely possible if you have a really good flow of the track, it can work out. The first qualifying, I just had a few little things I needed to fix. I just never linked a good lap together. And then in the second qualy, I just had linked most of my stuff together. I think I made one mistake in it, but it was a pretty good lap, and I was happy with that, and it definitely sets the tone going into the motors. You’re a little bit happier, excited going into it, so it helps. And then I think, as I said, I worked on my starts a lot, so that helped as well.
Second moto, Hunter was right on you at one point, and then you just dropped your lap time. Was that intentional? Were you pacing yourself the first half of the race because you just sort of clicked into gear and made up a bit of a gap there?
He’s my brother. I know him very, very well. I know if we try and set a good pace off to start, he’s going to be there the entire race, and it’s going to be hard to break him because we both get a good flow, and it’s going to be a lot longer of a moto. So, I thought if I can spend those first 15 minutes getting a flow where I’m using the least amount of energy, I know he would be there trying to make a pass, might be using a little more. I knew this track was very one-liner, as he was saying earlier, it’s a prick to try and pass on. So thought if I could do that then if I could halfway just do one really fast lap and get a gap on, I might be able to try and just break him a little bit in a way or try and get a gap where I can maybe pull away and thankfully it did. If not, I would’ve had nothing else to really try and pull on him. But it worked out and I just kept on trying to push as much as I can to try and get more and more of a gap, because he doesn’t give up through the whole moto, so was able to get more of a gap and made a few little mistakes and got a little sketchy so I’m like, all right, we’re just going to back it down a smidge in a few spots and it was able to get the win that last one, so I was happy with it.
This weekend was a big weekend. Haiden Deegan goes P1 in the first qualifier, Jett, you get the qualifiers overall. Hunter, you rode fantastic in the race. Jett, you showed us that your ankle’s great, but we’ve seen some racing among all three of you guys, and coming into this outdoor season, there is a level of respect that a rookie doesn’t have until they race, become faster, and are in the fight. And today I’ve seen that Haiden rode pretty clean against you guys. Has that respect level changed between you guys, and how is that racing going?
I wouldn’t say my ankle’s great. It still hurts. It was good then, like I said earlier, I think this track kind of helps it out a bit. I could manage my foot. Pala had way too many obstacles for my foot, but yeah, it’s good. A good day. Finally, I felt what it was like to be back in pole in the second qualy. First time I had a really, really good flow where I didn’t have to push too hard at all, got a bit of a gap, and just kept using my lines. I was saying earlier, when you get out front, you can kind of take your lines, and you almost ride with less energy. It was a good day, and I’m happy I was able to go one like how I used to and it gives me definitely some confidence going the rest of the season. I didn’t know how my foot was going to be.
Last weekend, first race back from injury, you did well but not quite what we’ve been seeing from you. Were you surprised that it came back this quickly at the second round and didn’t take a few more?
No, I knew if I could get a track where I could manage it, I felt like I could somehow pull something off. The first weekend, I think that track was definitely not the track for my ankle, and it hurt badly, and after that, it was terrible; I could barely walk. Where today it’s definitely a lot less sore than last week, which is good. Obviously, I got running shoes on, the dad kicks to try and help with walking, so style is out the window there. But no, this track kind of helped out my foot, and I definitely knew I’d get to this point at some point, I just wasn’t sure when, if this track was going to fit me in a way where I could rest my foot in sections.
Last weekend, just visually watching it, I felt like your bike was maybe a little on the soft side, especially at the rear. How hard is it to figure out how stiff you can go to balance things like that with the foot, the energy you feel, the stuff you feel in acceleration, g-outs, things like that? Or do you feel like you’re having to handicap your bike set up a little bit right now for the foot?
Last weekend my bike was a little bit upside down, you could have said. It’s the top of it had a bit of a crust, and I struggled in the turns to try and just kind of start my turn, you could say, with all the choppy bumps. It just bounced, and then on heavy impacts or big breaking bumps, it kind of blows through. So, we fixed that for this weekend. We got a little more holed up, and it was better when pushing hard. It felt really, really good, which is nice when you want to push, just if I wanted to try and relax a little bit, go a little bit kind of little twitchy, but we’re going to go back to work like we always do and try and figure out this bike a little bit more and try and get it good for Colorado.
Do you feel like Colorado will play a little bit better towards your weakness right now like Hangtown did? Or are you a little concerned with how Colorado usually develops?
We’ll see.
Lucas Coenen is coming over for Colorado. Do you guys care about that? Are you excited that the GP guys are coming over?
It’s always cool seeing two other brothers, doing really well in Europe, and for them to come over, it’s sick, so they’ll probably have some good fun here with the tracks being different to Europe. I feel like they’re a lot more fun here, so yeah, they’re going to enjoy it, learn some things for next year. I think they come over, you said so. Yeah, I think they’ll have a good time. It’s going to be fun.
Photos: octopi.media
