Slaw
Finally, Hunter Lawrence is a winner in the 450SX class of Monster Energy AMA Supercross. Prior to round 7 of the championship in Arlington, TX, on Saturday, Hunter had made 25 career 450SX starts. In those starts he had 0 wins, 6 podiums, and 13 top-5’s.
At every step of his career–MXGP, 250SX, 250 and 450 Pro Motocross and the Motocross of Nations–Hunter has won. A lot! This was the last thing to check off his list and he did it in electric fashion Saturday night, passing Ken Roczen and Cooper Webb and holding off a hard charging Eli Tomac.
While many said this would happen (including me, who kind of sort of predicted this exact round #mediamemberoftheyear) until it actually happens, you never know.
Hunter, who extended his championship lead to four over Tomac, spoke with the media following the race:
Your first win indoors, that is. You’ve been right there all season long. Was there a switch that you had to flip tonight or what we saw from you from your perspective, is this just more of what you’ve been doing, it just broke through tonight?
Hunter Lawrence: I think it’s more of what I’ve been doing. I really feel like my riding in Seattle could have led me to a similar result. I just feel like the biggest key thing was get wheel spin on the gate. Tonight, I got around the first turn in that top five and, like Eli was saying earlier, it’s really important for the start. Honestly, with how good the class is, it’s tough to have a really bad start and then expect to come through and battle for a win.
You’ve mentioned the last couple of weeks post-race that to get this win that you knew you had to be better in the first 5 and 10 minutes, that you needed to be able to sprint, be able to push your pace. You’ve commented before that you’ve been trying to figure out how to trust the bike or certain other things in the opening part of the race. What was the breakthrough tonight for you to have that early race pace?
I don’t know, the bike’s been… We’ve been working on the bike and stuff and improving it. I’ve been getting better and just racing myself in, I guess. Honestly, it’s tough to replicate racing and I definitely think my first half of the races has gotten better for sure. So it just kind of gets better throughout the racing. The more I gel with the bike, the more you just kind of get more familiarized with it, I think.
And then the premier 450 supercross class, when you’ve, again, won basically almost everything that you possibly can at this point, including Motocross of Nations, where does this win stack up to finally get this one done?
Yeah, it’s really good. Probably coolest thing is it’s the biggest paying bonus, like Nations we don’t really make anything, so that’s probably the coolest thing.
Another battle with Kenny. You showed a lot of patience. Was it difficult to show the patience? Was there a deja vu moment in there about the incident recently?
No, I mean it’s like just chess out there. He would make a little mistake and I’d try and get there, but then he’d have the inside for the next corner and it was really cool. I think that racing to watch and to be a part of is really cool. The battle goes on for multiple laps and it was really cool, really cool.
Kind of an extension to that. When you have Coop so close behind you at the same time, what’s going on in your head about, “Well, if I make a pass here and make a slight mistake, then I might lose a spot,” and how do you kind of balance those two things at the same time when you’re trying to actually pass into the lead?
Yeah, it’s cool. Honestly, it’s like that don’t mess up your playing defense, but you’re playing offense. It’s cool. I really enjoy that because it is such a tricky spot to be in, but man, it feels good when you pull it off. I think that’s one of those very high stakes pressure moment, which I don’t know, I just love that. It’s so cool and so fun.
What was going through your head that last lap? Any nerves?
No, it was just like one more lap, just hit my marks, don’t do anything stupid. I need to get across the finish line. That’s honestly it.
You’ve been in the title fight this whole race, obviously a points leader coming in. There was a stat floating around where most of the recent champions have had a win in the first seven rounds, it’s round seven, you got to win. How does that feel to kind of get that out of the way and how do you carry that momentum moving forward in this championship fight?
I mean, not really any different, honestly. I feel like I’ve been doing the same thing for every round this year and I feel like it’s been doing well. So I think just keep doing the same approach. Don’t need to change a bunch of stuff and just kind of stick with it because it’s been I’ve been getting good starts and been riding well in the main event. I just need to keep doing that.
I feel like there was constant pressure throughout the whole race. You were passing guys, you had guys on you, a couple close calls in the, whoops, we know you keep it calm and cool in the middle, but how do you keep your heart rate and keep it in calm when you have a couple of close calls like the end of the whoops there and just everything going on? How do you just remain so calm and collected throughout all this chaos?
The whoops, were tricky tonight, man. The dirt here looked insane, but I blame the monster trucks, man. Anytime they come in before us on a dirt, it just sucks, like the dirt’s so different after. But just breathe a ton around the flat turn after it and finish line, you’re breathing in the air, just kind of pushing your max but trying to just hold it at your max. It’s such a fine line that you walk along and just get to 15 minute mark and then you’re like, “All right, send me the tank.”
To continue with a little bit of Mitch’s point, it seemed like some of the lap riders were either a little bit unaware of the leaders were coming by or unaware that there were so many of you guys really close together. How did you manage to stay focused with all the chaos that was going on and to try to move around those guys without having an impact on your race?
Yeah, I mean it’s just what we have to deal with as racers. I mean, all of us have had the short end of that stick multiple times when you’re leading and you get into lappers first, they kind of get caught by surprised or sometimes they’ll get out of the way and then they don’t know about the second and third guy. So it’s just kind of one of those things that you can be so prepared for it, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out out there doing their own race. So I didn’t think the lappers were too bad tonight, honestly. I thought they were pretty okay for how many laps we did and we got pretty deep.
Speaking of that chess match with Kenny, after the mechanics area right hand, you either had the option to on-on-off or table on-on. I was really surprised that Kenny kept getting defensive in that section, would give you the run, he would keep doing the slower line to protect that inside from your position. Were you shocked at all that that kind of kept opening up and after a while did you know like, “Okay, this is eventually where the spot’s going to be, if he keeps letting me have this.”?
Yes and no. He would’ve had to messed up the inside for me to and go really high on that table table, but as he’s seen, he would always have the inside for the next corner. So it was just kind of not following, “I know this line, I know if I can get it, I can maybe make something happen, maybe scrub to the next one a little better.” But he is such an experienced guy, he was able to just get over it and then scrub through the next two just enough to be beside me into the next one. And at that one time where we both kind of went into the 90 and rolled, I was kind of like, “Oh, I hope we don’t get passed behind us,” because I felt like we slowed down a bit, but no, it was good, good fun.
Photos: octopi.media
