Jett Lawrence on Southwick Win and Championship Battle with His Brother: “I wouldn’t want to be battling with no one else but Hunter”

Once again, the 450 points lead belongs to Jett Lawrence, as the Lawrence brothers continue to swap the championship lead. 

After an up and down RedBud, Jett was back out front again in the first moto, but another untimely mistake cost him the moto win, as he went down with a few laps remaining, which allowed Hunter to take the moto win.

The second moto favored Jett, as Hunter grabbed the holeshot and Jett was in third behind Haiden Deegan. After getting around Deegan, Jett closed on Hunter and the brothers were less than two seconds apart as the moto ticked away. 

It was Hunter this time making an error, as he hit neutral and went over the bars. Jett would take the win and with Hunter finishing fourth, Jett now holds a one point lead in the championship heading into Spring Creek this weekend. 

After the race, Jett talked about the “win” and much more. 

Congratulations on now having the red plate again. This week your new foot peg was kind of all the buzz. Can you talk to us about that and whether or not it helped?
Jett Lawrence: I think it definitely helped a little bit for my foot. It just kind of saved it for sure. I think I was able to use my legs a little bit more. But also, I mean, my foot’s still the same. I think I’m getting sick of my foot questions because for me it hasn’t changed at all and I’m still saying the same things. I think we can ask a lot more better questions for today because there’s a lot more things going on. My foot hurts. It is what it is. I think we can move on from that.

I’ll try to go foot adjacent. Something we haven’t talked about, we talked about the pain thing, but your fitness, have you had to do different stuff off the bike? Are you able to do everything you want in the gym? How have you supplemented that? How do you feel about your fitness right now?
Yeah, I haven’t been able to do what I want to do. I want to do a lot more during the week, but I kind ofcan’t because of my body’s recovering and then also recovering something else. I’m definitely not doingwhat I want to during the week and what I normally do for sure.

Going back to the first moto, you obviously had that little crash and kind of threw the win away. Did it feel like redemption in the second moto? And do you feel like if you could do that first moto over again, you felt like you had the speed to win it and get both done today?
I definitely felt like I could have got it done in the first one as well, but just this track you can be, I was like, gosh, half a tire too high on that support and it was enough to obviously push it through support and then obviously grab. But things happen. We had a pretty big lead, Hunter and I, so I was able to getup in second still, thankfully.

The second one, I was just kind of pacing myself. I had not too bad of a flow, but obviously we’re just kind of saving it if I need it at the end for anything. Poor HJ went down with that one with a bit of a weird crash. It obviously sucked for him and you don’t want to see someone crash and you get gifted a race win. We ain’t going to be too picky and complain about it; we’ll take it. I’m not saying I won that one. Kind of got gifted.

What about this track makes you easy to ride even though you have little struggle with your brother during the lappers? But when he crashed, you say, “This mine, I got this. “What do you think about that when you finished, you got the overall today?
I think we had a pretty good pace going on where we’re still pulling away. At that point it was like, all right, I just need to keep doing my same lap times and obviously look at the time. Because when you’re out front, you have that bit of a gap, you’re kind of in a bit of no man’s land. I just tried to focus on my lap times and just kind of keep that flow going because I felt like I had a pretty decent flow when I was behind Hunter, so I just wanted to kind of keep that going. I just really try to focus on my lap times and try and create most of my attention to that because I know if I can hold my lap time and keep an eye on the gap behind as well, I can manage pretty well.

If you had to say, what percentage healthier are you at this point in the season than when we started the season?
I don’t know. I mean, I feel like I’m still at 70%.

You said you don’t feel like you technically win. Hunter didn’t technically win. Are we going golfing tomorrow or Monday to figure out who actually won this weekend?
I don’t know. It’s a good question because you got me confused. I’m not sure. Who knows? We might do rock, paper, shoot on Monday. Who knows?

The Coenens came in today and were very impressive. A lot of people expected that. They have their GP experience, their Belgian sand experience. You’re one of the few guys I can ask this. Having spent your time in Europe with sand, how different is Southwick than your traditional, your Lommel and everything? Is it really comparable or do most fans overread into that when a GP guy’s going to come over?
I think it’s very different to what normal sand is in Europe. I find the sand in Europe is very, it’s depth less almost. It’s just there’s no base to it. Where Southwick, it’s kind of known to have a bit of a base in a lot of areas. You never get fully deep rollers. And then also the bumps don’t form up the same like in Europe. Europe, is kind of insane, you get a really flowy bump going. It’s almost a little easier in a way.It’s still physically demanding because you don’t stop the entire time. I think Lommel’s obviously a gnarly, gnarly race because the rollers and everything gets so deep, so you’re working a lot. I can’t say it’s easier, but it’s just different. It’s always great to have the Coenen brothers come out. Obviously they had a bit of a bad day, so I hope they’re okay. We got to see it in the first qualifying. We got to learn a few things off of Lucas, of how he rides the sand where it’s like picking up that Euro way of riding a sand track. We kind of got reminded of how to ride sand.

I know we came into the opening round of the season stacked field, going to be a great championship and it still is, but it has come down to you and HJ a little quicker than a lot of people would’ve perceived at the beginning of the season. I’d say this is the best HJ we’ve seen outdoors. You guys have raced each other a lot. How difficult do you think this is going to be down to the wire? Are you enjoying it or is this one getting a little tougher seeing the back and forth with you two a little more than usual?
It’s tough, but I think it’s fun. I think it’s what’s keeping almost me going with my foot a little more. I don’t know. I like it. I wouldn’t want to be battling with no one else but Hunter. I think it’s cool. And I expected us to go what we’ve done so far. I know my game and where we’re at and I know where he’s at and it’s I feel like the top of our sport right now. I figured a little bit where we’ll just be, because we’re good at our starts. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Battling with your brother for a championship is obviously it’s really, really cool because not a lot of people get to do it.

Photos: octopi.media