Slaw
Jett Lawrence is the 450MX points leader once again. But not the way he wanted it.
A 2-1 finish on Saturday in Pro Motocross’ return at Unadilla was not an anomaly for Jett. It was, after all, his fourth win on the season and 28th in his brief 450 career (good enough for fourth all-time!). Instead, the abnormal result came from Hunter Lawrence, the points leader coming into the weekend. After a win in the opening moto, Hunter held a 15-point lead in the championship with just five motos to run. The pressure was squarely on Jett.
Hunter didn’t look as polished as he did in moto one, losing spots to Jett and Jorge Prado early in the race. He stayed in the fight, though, until he got sideways at the top of Screw-U and went flying down the hill. His bike was ruined, his moto was done, and his points lead gone in one fell swoop. An eighth overall was not only his worst finish of the season, but the only time he’s EVER finished outside the top five overall in his 450MX career.
From 15 points up, to now 10 down the pressure is squarely on Hunter with just four motos left to run.
After the race, Jett spoke with the media about Hunter’s crash, why he’s had success at Unadilla and pet pig that made his afternoon.
Here’s our overall winner with 2-1 moto scores. This is Jett Lawrence. Before we get into moto, can you tell us why you have to wipe off your hands and why it took a second to get in here to the press tent?
Jett Lawrence: Well, yeah, I looked out of the corner of my eye. I spotted a huge pig. It’s 140 pounds. I’m an animal person and I thought about buying a pig at one stage for the farm, but I’m a terrible pet owner. Well, my family thinks, and most of the time I palm it off. So, they said no, but I love farm animals. That was awesome. Named Moto. It’s a she. She sits and she shotguns beers, which is insane, apparently. I’m not joking. She said that. I’m like, she gets after it more than I do. So yeah, that made my day, honestly.
More so than the overall win?
Oh, yes. 1000%.
Now, can you tell us about the motos?
Yeah. First moto, a bit of a bummer. I just kind of was pushing too much to try and get to Hunter. I think I tried to ask for too much too early. And then second moto, got an okay start. Jorge just out, jumped me a little bit, but I was able to tuck under and chased Hunter from the get-go. I was able to get him. Sadly, he went down, which is obviously not good. I don’t want that. Here and after the situation he was in with run up, which is messed up. You don’t want that. And I don’t want to get the red plate like that. So I’m kind of bummed honestly about it because I don’t want to get it that way. I want to work for it. It’s kind of almost gifted in a way with the red plate. But we still have two rounds to go. He’s been riding phenomenal lately, so we’ll see how it turns out. Big turn of events in between two motos because he gains three points on me and then ends up losing a bunch. It’s sad, but we’ll lock in the next few races and try and do my best.
When Honda has a bad day like this, and in other times it’s been yourself, when he’s go home, how do you deal with each other? Do you have to give him some space? Is it disappointment? Does the family come around together? How do you manage that? Because you’ve had a good day, but he’s had a bad day today. So yeah, I just want to see how you take that and how that you both deal with that when you get home after the race.
We’ll probably be at dinner tonight and it will already be dropped. We’ve raced enough. We’ve had enough bad races and one have a good one. We’re pissed after and obviously frustrated. One’s obviously happy, but kind of once we get on the road to go to dinner or to the airport, it kind of gets dropped honestly. It’s already passed, it happened. All right, great. But we’re already focused on next thing and talking about where we need to be better. Maybe with bike set up, maybe we got to be better somewhere. So, it kind of gets dropped pretty quick, to be honest, and just kind of focused onto the next thing.
There are a lot of tracks that seem like fit you or you perform well at, but Unadilla now you’ve won four out of five starts here. Your previous two starts here, you ended up wrapping the 450 MX title. What is it about this place that fits you so well and why is Unadilla so good to Jett Lawrence?
I’m not sure, honestly, brother. It’s just have had kind of good luck and I think I’ve gelled with the track really good here. And I like Unadilla. It’s a fun track. Today it was really brutal. It was a bit of a struggle to get a flow and get good line because everywhere was just choppy and just had square edges. This one was definitely one of the more difficult Unadillas. I can’t really tell you. I just like this place and have good vibes here. I think also coming in after a break, you just feel a little fresh again.
I’m just saying, the Dog Pound definitely has enough room for pigs. Would like to see that this off-season. Did you know about Hunter’s situation? I don’t know when he pulled off. I know you were about to come up on lap him, so I wasn’t. Were you made aware of that or did you find out in the tent?
I didn’t know, to be quite fair. I was looking around. I had [Jorge} Prado right there and I’m looking around, looking around. I couldn’t see him. And then I thought I was seeing something, because I saw his gear almost up ahead, but I’m like, “Oh, I’m sure it’s just another gear set looks similar.” And then I never caught him after that or anything or lapped him. So, I was just like,
“Oh, must have got myself confused.” But yeah, I found out right after when I hopped off the bike, I asked him, “What did Hunter get?” And they’re like, “Oh, he DNF’d.” And I’m like, “Oh, you got to be kidding me.” Because obviously my heart sunk or my gut sunk in that moment because I’m just thinking of the worst. They’re like, “Yeah, he high-sided down.” I’m thinking even worse. But thankfully they said he’s okay. Just the bike was really mangled up and had to run up the hill apparently to get to his bike, which sucks. But yeah, I found out right after the race and I was pretty bummed.
And then racing Jorge, I mean, it has been primarily you and your brother this summer. So I just saw you looking back over the sky, shot the one lap when Jorge kind of made that run on you. Is it a little different just jumping in and racing with somebody different? I know he rides a little bit differently than you guys. He’s a good technique guy. You are as well, but anything catch you off guard today with Jorge’s pace or just having to race somebody different than your brother?
He was just riding really, really well. Honestly, even in the first moto when I was behind him, it took me a very, very long time to catch him. And I think it wasn’t really until the end, until a couple laps really. I think it was more so because of lappers. He may have caught a bunch of lappers and I got lucky through him. But yeah, he was riding really well today. We battled for a little bit, which was fun. It’s always fun battling with Jorge because he’s a good racer and it was good. We’ve been battling a lot with my brother, but it was nice to kind of have a bit of a change almost and battle with someone else.
You mentioned that you’re looking around for Hunter. Is it really hard to stay focused when that happens? Obviously you care so much about your brother’s result as well. How do you just kind of continue racing forward?
I was looking around for him and then as I was looking, I had a sketchy moment. I didn’t see an edge and got major head shake. I’m like, all right, let’s just focus back on ourselves so we don’t throw it away. Obviously, I want to know where he’s at. I think it’s more so for his safety. Looking to see where his position was once you see him like, all right, focus on me. But I think once you kind of can’t see him at all, then I’m thinking more. So as a brother, I’m like, oh, where did he go? What happened? Hopefully he’s okay. Hopefully it’s just maybe a bike malfunction. It’s something light, nothing crazy. It’s more of the brother side of thing kicks in where you’re wondering and hoping that he’s okay.
And is that something that you think about in the moment and then it quickly moves on? Or are you kind of thinking the whole race like, oh, I wonder where Hunter is?
There’s definitely times and sections where I’ll be thinking about it, but I try to think about it for a second and then try and get back on what I was doing. So that’s when mistakes can happen, because I don’t want anything bad to happen to my brother. He’s my blood out there. So I want to make sure he’s always good. I looked around for a bit, couldn’t find him. Oh, hopefully he’s okay. And hopefully it’s nothing bad. And then I tried to focus back in quickly.
You’ve had question marks coming into this season about how things would go, and you’ve maybe been the most frustrated I’ve seen you at times this year. Have you been able to kind of pull yourself back yet at all and look at this whole season as a success, the way that it’s gone?
It’s hard, because I like to win. I haven’t won a lot this year, so that’s pissing me off. That’s the biggest thing. I’m a racer. I want to win really badly. And when I can’t do it because of something, because I can’t do what I normally want to do, it obviously was really frustrating for me. Also another thing was since the [injury], I’ve been in pain with my foot every morning, waking up. I still have it. Waking up, I’m crippled almost going to the bathroom. My ankle’s so locked up and it’s stiff, but once the day gets on, it gets a little looser and warmed up. But it’s just those little things that you just get frustrated a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. And obviously it takes one big thing to kind of really piss you off in a way. Looking back, I still can’t be too terribly mad just because of the injury that I have. I’m just going to try and keep looking forward and not look back too much and just try and focus on what I need to do to get it better.
Is it possible to reconstruct how you were feeling in those moments between winning Moto 2, overcoming the disappointment in Moto 1, and then how did you feel in that moment before you found out that Hunter had had the problems that he had had?
I was almost pretty numb to the win because in my mind, I didn’t know exactly where Hunter was. All right, I may have climbed two points back or something. But I was pretty numb. And then obviously once I found out the news that he DNF’d, I was kind of more bummed. They’re like, oh, you have red plate. But I don’t really want it that way. I was more so bummed about it, honestly. I was kind of bummed for Hunter as well because he’s done so well this year as well. It was a difficult one to kind of swallow.
And the swing went from you not needing to win out, but needing to win the majority, to he still has control of his fate if he can win out. What’s that kind of competition like now? You guys are probably going to go 1-2 in the next couple of races. Do you feel that the momentum still for him, even though he had the crash?
We’ll see. I think we’ll still be good as brothers. That will never change. We’re just going to go into the races and do what we’ve been doing lately. Obviously I’ve been on the losing hand lately and nothing’s really changed. We get frustrated, but then you snap out of it not too long after the race.
Photos: octopi.media
