Slaw
He may not still be able to ride “normal” and he may still be less than 100%, but Honda HRC Progressive’s Jett Lawrence is quickly reestablishing himself at the front of the 450 pack in Pro Motocross.
After getting his footing back under him at the Fox Raceway opener, Jett has sweep rounds 2 and 3 at Hangtown and Thunder Valley and in the process taken over the points lead from his brother Hunter. As the series moves east to High Point Raceway in Mt. Morris, PA, this Saturday, Jett will carry a slim eight-point lead in the title chase.
In his brief 450 career outdoors, Jett has been nearly unstoppable. Consider this: he was making his 30th career 450 Class start on Saturday and already has 26 wins, 28 podiums and top-5’s and 29 top-10’s!
After the race, Jett spoke with the media about his ankle, the Coenen brothers, holding the red plate and more.
Congratulations on now earning yourself the red plate. Can you talk a little bit about your day and then also I’m sure we’d all like to hear about the status of your foot and how that’s affecting you.
Jett Lawrence: Super pumped to have red plate. It’s obviously good to have. Doesn’t mean anything at this point really. It’s more important if you have it at the last round, so not really much change. I feel like this will look really. To be fair, my ankle felt really, really good this weekend. I still can’t ride normal. I just have a little bit less of pain. Every now and then, I still jar it a bit, but it was good, honestly. Even after walking around, it’s getting a lot better, which I’m happy about because it means I don’t have to struggle with walking like I did before, so I think it’s looking positive. I think if each weekend we can just make some good strides in improving it where it feels like it’s kind of going back to normal. Even during this week when G adjusts my ankle before when he would pull on it only pop the left side of my foot and my right side was still stuck in. It was still pretty stiff to go side to side, and this week we were able to get both sides to pop and a lot more range of movement. I was able to get a lot more range of movement side to side, so that was really, really good. Hopefully each weekend it keeps making more improvements.
It looked like you were out there for a zone two ride and I know yesterday you said you’re trying to keep your ankle at a seven out of 10, but the first moto you had some battle with your brother and Deegan looked like you might’ve gone more into that zone three or zone four threshold, but do you just have more in the tank or are you only riding around 80%?
That one I was; I was going slow. I didn’t have a flow of the track at all, and you could have said zone two honestly, but surprisingly because I was so disjointed and had not much of a flow, I almost got more tired in that one than I did the second one. The second one I was pushing, you could say harder everywhere, but I didn’t get as tired as in the first one. That first one, I just couldn’t crack the flow. And obviously with my foot, there’s just some things, the reaction side of things, you want both feet to be on the pegs where sometimes my right foot’s just really light in some areas, so when it flicks, it flicks my right foot off. So, it was not ideal, but we’re just on defense mode in that first one. I think we did pretty well.
Is there any hesitancy in putting your foot down, any worry about dabbing it with the ankle and does that throw your rhythm off just a little bit?
Yeah, I mean I’ve dabbed a few times, and it gives this kind of sharp pain up my ankle into my calf, but I try not to dab it too much because it takes a few turns to kind of flare it back down, get it back to normal. So, I try not to, I’ve been pretty well with dabbing it and when I have dabbed it, I’ve been really light with it. Try not to stomp it as like you normally would. So yeah, it definitely would affect me for a few turns, but it recovers fairly quickly thankfully.
I heard you mention to him the track conditions and that’s been a little bit of a subject around the pits. I’ve heard this weekend you go back and look at this race from the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, traditionally a hard pack race. Ruts where they saturate it, but they get hard packed deep. We’re kind of in that mulch area again where really spongy in places, certain areas look decent. Walk me through what you thought of the track changes and the conditions today.
They obviously added mulch to the track, which I don’t think is a bad thing. It’s not like it’s a terrible thing. I think that it’s adding it too close to the race. I think if they would’ve added months prior, where the mulch can work into the soil and mix together, then I think it’ll hold better moisture. They add the mulch to hold the moisture, but right now it’s the mulch on top and then there’s still rock-hard underneath, so it’s basically worse. I think if they added it sooner in the year where it gives it two or one month to mix in with the dirt, I think it’d be a lot better. Because otherwise you just get this where everything kind of pushes, nothing really holds. Eventually it blows out and gets this, you get a hard edge but then a slick base and you get loose. This creates really an untrustworthy feeling, your front wheel and rear. I mean my first few lap when I went out there, I was here with the water as well coming in. I’ve had both wheels sliding just because of the mulch and the water on top of it as well. I think if they can do that, I think it’ll be a lot better.
And then secondly, Lucas and Sasha Coenen here as well this weekend. A lot of people compare it a little bit to your story, it’s a little different. You guys went from Australia to Europe to do GPs and then to the US, but I mean same for them starting the GPs, two brothers chasing a dream, wanting to come live the American dream. You’ve gone to race them a couple times now. What do you think of their progress? What are your expectations if they’re able to come here in 2027?
It’s sick to see. I mean I think I said it maybe yesterday: Not many people get to experience the feeling that my brother and I get when we do well, when we both were in 2023 when he won the 250 championship and I won the 450 championship where the only people that can really relate to that now is honestly the Coenen brothers. Lucas is doing really well in MXGP and Sacha as well in the 250 class, MX2. So, it’s cool to see when you see two brothers doing well. It’s sick, because obviously they’re doing well because both of them are doing really good and it’s always good to see brothers do well. We had Jeremy Martin and Alex Martin before Hunter and I, and when you see them two do good, it’s always cool. It’s like a family thing. So, it was cool to see them come over. I got to race them last year at Ironman and already seen them improve just from then. So, it’s cool to see, especially at a young age, being 19 years old, I remember when I was 19 riding a 450, you just keep learning and keep learning. You have that young energy, so it’s really, really cool to see. And they came over a tough track. Like I said, this dirt was really kind of weird and hard to adapt to.
Last week you talked about being able to manage your flow, especially in Moto 2. This is a high contrast this week, couldn’t manage the flow quite so much in the first race. Is that what we saw? And did you learn anything by being pressed as hard as you were by both Haiden and Hunter?
I learned that I didn’t have a good flow; I can tell you that for sure. It’s hard to learn much when you’re out front on someone else, but you kind of get a feeling a little bit on where they’re going to pass, and you can kind of read ‘what’s his name’ like a book, where he is going to try and pass. So, it’s a little easier to kind of defense that. Hunter gets a lot more creative. He was able to get around me and I was able to kind of fire back and get a good run up to start straight. I wouldn’t say I learned a crazy amount then, when I’m probably more battling with them more behind them and stuff like that.
Photos: octopi.media
