As I wrote last week, Anaheim 1 is a freaking pressure cooker. It is our Super Bowl. Our Daytona 500. Our most looked at, most talked about, and most over hyped event of the year. Fail here and the message boards will have you off your factory team before San Diego hits. It’s just the way it is.
And, on cue, the 2025 Monster Energy Supercross season opener on Saturday proved my theory: Anaheim 1 will always provide weird, strange results and happenings that we likely won’t see the remainder of the season.
Enter Jett Lawrence.
Since moving to the 450 Class prior to the start of the 2023 Pro Motocross season, Jett has done no wrong. He won the Pro Motocross Championship that year as a rookie. He won the 2023 SuperMotocross World Championship. The 2024 Monster Energy Supercross Championship, as a rookie. The 2024 SuperMotocross World Championship. And, led Australia to its first-ever Motocross of Nations victory in 2024.

Deep breathe….
Yeah, he’s done it all. And he just turned 21.
At Anaheim 1, we saw the first “weird” race from Jett in arguably his entire 450 career. He just wasn’t himself. Yeah, he got caught up in the first turn and started dead last. But it was after that which was the most surprising. He made another mistake and went down in the sand. He struggled in the whoops and could just never get anything going and went on to finish 12th, his worst result in his young Supercross career.

“That wasn’t ideal, but the only way to go from here is up,” said Jett in a Honda press release. “We’ll go back, work hard, do some testing, and come back better. We always do.”
While I typically don’t take much from the opener, the one outlier in all this is: the 2025 CRF450R. It’s an all-new bike and in addition, according to Racer X, the factory team is also using new suspension components from Showa, a new ECU supplier (GET Data) and a new fuel (ETS). A lot to deal with, in my opinion.
Should Honda and Jett panic about this result? No, not at all. Jett is the best rider in the world and on one of the best teams in world. He will rebound and be in this title chase.

Team manager Lars Lindstrom echoed that following the race.
“In my opinion, our performance was actually better than it seems, with Hunter moving his way forward in the beginning until his unfortunate crash, and Jett having the fastest lap time by almost a second in the heat race,” said Lindstrom. “We definitely need to make some improvements, but at the same time, I don’t think we need to panic about our results. It’s a long series, so it’s time to trust in ourselves and come back strong in San Diego.”
Panic, no. But Jett is already in a 15 point hole in the championship and San Diego looms large this Saturday.

Images: @octopi.media
Tomac looked the best ever 🇺🇸
Jett should be back in form this week. He’s a proven winner from last year.