The Lawrence family left Australia to go and race in Europe before making the move to America which has seen them go to the top of the sport in quite a short period of time. Jett and Hunter have a serious amount of talent but father, Darren has been making all the right calls in their career to get them to this point.
We caught up with Darren after the Paris Supercross to discuss their journey and much more… You can listen, read or watch below.
GateDrop: Darren, here at Paris Supercross, it was almost the perfect weekend for Jett, maybe just a little bit impatient or maybe not, he maybe just misread the back marker, but anyway, just a mistake, these things can happen, but the pace…
Lawrence: He has moved for sure, yeah, he just didn’t read it, he just read it like, holy crap, he was going really slow! (laughs).
GateDrop: Well everyone’s going really slow when it comes to Jett, you know what I mean? (laughs)…
Lawrence: Yeah, for sure (laughs).
GateDrop: But you must be happy though, aside from that, what he was able to do this weekend…
Lawrence: These events are so good for us, because we have a lot of, a lot of people probably don’t know, but you know, Showa come out with a lot of parts that are updated to where they want the suspension to go, but maybe it ends up in public stuff in four years, five years, you know, so we have a lot of new Showa stuff inside the bike.
The 2025 frames obviously are new for Supercross, so we have a lot of learning to do and we wanted to give the boys a bit of time off this year, because we haven’t given them much time off in the last four to five years… so they hadn’t had much time on the bike, got a bit of testing in, we’re like, ah, we think we’ve got a pretty good window, okay, we’ll go to France, have some fun, race some laps and see where we’re at. I find they compensate so much on their own track, you know, that you need to get a fresh new track to really see what the bike’s doing and see what it is, so we found we’re way too soft and so we, yeah, we chased it all weekend and got it in not a bad window, so it’s good, really, really good information for us to work on and get better at for A1, you know.
GateDrop: What was your thoughts on the track? Do you think riding a track like that does help whenever you go back to America for the Supercross?
Lawrence: A thousand percent. These tracks, the only reason I do them, if they were, you know, Bercy tracks of 15 years ago, I don’t think we’d come, you know. But these tracks, they’re sick, they do such a good job with it, it’s unreal.
GateDrop: When you think about it, it’s not really that long ago you were running around the GP paddock and Jett was on a Suzuki, messing around with Liam Everts, but it goes to show how fast time it goes, and even his first year in America, he was only an amateur, so are you surprised at how quickly, you know, he’s gone to the top of the sport?
Lawrence: Surprised? Yes and no. Jett is a quick learner. What I’m surprised is where we got to. I actually just never thought we’d get to this level, but as a family, as a dad, you just love that learning phase for your kids. Alright, you want to be better at it, well, you’ve got to put work into it to get better, so I, and that’s why we love coming back to Europe, although we do race so much during the year, we’re so busy. This one’s a little bit different. You haven’t got the pressure of the championship. It’s still more of a fun thing while you got into it. We come back, the teams bring their wives, the mechanics and stuff bring their wives, you know, so they can come back, they can have fun, get a more of a social event, so it’s a little bit of a different feeling than, you know, AMA where you’re getting the big dollars.
GateDrop: And a couple of people I’m going to mention here, we’re always talking about the Everts and how they helped you when you came to Europe, but Greg Moss is always quick to comment on our posts… He also helped you in Australia. Just how did those two people help you when you were coming through the ranks?
Lawrence: Mossy taught me everything on the basics of riding, all the little rudiments that you see, and I still use that stuff today on our farm with kids, just little circles and balancing things. He taught me all the basics, but one of the main things as he was coaching us was like, you have to learn to coach yourself, you have to learn to keep evolving, and that’s one thing that we obviously taught, because Mossy’s coached thousands of kids in their time, you know.
We really grasped every word he said and just treat it like the bible of how to move forward, so no, Mossy, unbelievable. Scott Bishop, Mike Ward from Yamaha took Hunter when I had to go to the mines in Australia, they took care of Hunter. There’s Heiko Klepka, Kenny’s dad, we all know that, how much they helped us.
There are so many people that you never ever want to forget that have helped you. We went to dinner with a guy in Las Vegas who was Hunter’s first ever sponsor in Australia on a 50cc. He gave us one set of gear, you know, Paul Sexton his name was. We never forgotten him and made sure he came out for dinner, mate, and he was just like, are you serious? I’m like, mate, you still gave us one set of gear, and that’s important to us, so never forget where we came from.
GateDrop: Some Aussies are making the trip over to race GPs next year, Jake Cannon being one of them. What advice would you have for those guys, sort of trying to follow in your footsteps?
Lawrence: Just do what we did. We followed Chad’s footsteps, they follow ours. Chad went to Europe and I knew there was something in Europe. I knew nothing of the sport then, you know, and still don’t know it all, don’t get me wrong, but you get obviously more educated as you go, but I knew there was something in Europe that Chad learnt. I had no clue what it was, I just knew I had to go there. That’s why I say that all the kids from Australia, from Australia to America, is, I think, is too big of a stage.
Europe just grinds you and just makes you tougher and just, there’s so many challenges, the language, there’s so much stuff where you have to overcome, and that’s what I think for Australians, the European path is the way to go.
GateDrop: Just on Hunter this weekend, maybe a little off the pace yesterday from his normal self, but his standards are high, but today I feel like he rode better. It was just a shame about the crash, but at least he got back to fourth…
Lawrence: No, no, happy with him. Because he hasn’t got the leg length and the limb length, Jett can compensate, so with the shock, obviously it was too soft, and so it would come back in the whoops so Jett can get over the back and just hold the shock down, Hunter can’t do that. Now he wants to stay central, because he knows if he gets back it’s going to boot him, so for him, he can’t compensate.
His bike has to be more in the window, then he can go quicker, but at the farm he’s been the same speed as Jett, so I’m not worried with him in the first six days of our riding is all we’ve had. I was really, really happy with him already, so I’m good with him.
GateDrop: Just going back a few weeks to the Motocross of the Nations, you guys made history, I mean what a weekend, did you ever think Australia would win the Motocross of the Nations?
Lawrence: Especially not that weekend, we struggled that whole weekend, and the boys were actually saying, man we’re riding it like an American, we’re trying to ride it aggressive and it’s not working, they had to go slower, to go faster, it took them all weekend to sort of get their European legs back under them. I did not expect us to do that, but one good thing Hunter and Jett, they can get the bike into a window, then they can compensate the rest, so it’s good.
GateDrop: Whenever you came to Europe, what was life for you like there, and what’s it like going to America, and your life for you there, I mean the lifestyle and stuff is probably a lot easier in America?
Lawrence: Big time, we are spoilt rotten in America, honestly. I was a practice mechanic for the boys here, and like you worked until eight or nine o’clock at night, you know, because you rode from lunchtime onwards in Europe, so it was hard work here, seven days a week, it was constant. America, like Supercross, honestly some days we just, oh yeah, we give it, we call it Supercross wash for Rene and I, we’ll just wash the wheels and tyres at the bottom of the frame, and he puts it in the shed, it’s just, we are a little spoilt, you know, but Supercross is gnarly for the athletes, like it is gnarly.
GateDrop: Just on Jett, I mean what he’s doing in America is unbelievable, but Hunter, he’s still doing very well himself, but do you feel like he’s living under the shadows, you know, what his brother’s doing, and hiding under the limelight a little bit, is that tough for him do you think, or is that something he just needs to forget about?
Lawrence: Hunter knows that he had so much to do with getting Jett to where he is, Hunter I think has a share of that, you know, like Hunter said, if I’m not winning, my stripes for you. You know, as long as there’s a Lawrence there, he doesn’t care, but my aim is obviously to get Hunter back to where his body was in Europe, you know, so we’re still working on that side of things, but I’m really happy with each year, you know what he’s like, he just grinds away, and he gets there slowly, Jett’s just, he’s just a different human being.
GateDrop: Hunter, one thing I liked about him is speaking a bit of French, I suppose maybe that comes from Cynthia, is he fluent in the language?
Lawrence: No but he’s trying to learn it, because Cynthia’s dad Charly doesn’t speak hardly any English, but his mum does, but he’s trying to learn the French obviously for Cynthia, and be able to talk to Cynthia’s dad. Hunter is pretty intellectual, pretty smart, so he picked up German when he was with Michael, and that was pretty good, and now he’s fighting the French a little harder than the German, but he’s getting there, you know.
GateDrop: Just on AMA, obviously they increased the races a few years back with the SMX, how tough is it doing 31 races a year, if you even make them all, it’s pretty brutal, and then obviously you guys come here, you don’t get much rest, do you get any time off?
Lawrence: We do, this year we took the time off, because we haven’t the years before, like we’ve stayed going for like that four to five years to try and get us up to where we need to be, because we just weren’t competitive, you know, so we just kept working. Whereas this year we’re like after Nations, like boys, don’t look at a motorcycle and then go away, you know, so that’s what I mean, we came back a bit late, and now we are going to head off to Australia, so we’re going to have some time off again there, and then ride there so for us these events are, we’re not downplaying them, but it’s like hey, let’s just come here, get some laps, let’s get some grooves, see where the bike’s at, so we go back and then December we’ll start to go to work. But the AMA side, it’s not so much what the boys find the actual event riding a motocross, it’s the plane flight there, plane flight back, and it’s all the obligations, they get torn here for the interview, this obligation, that obligation, that’s what wears them down, and I guess, I was trying to explain it to Jett the other day, I guess as a carpenter, you get into building a house because you love building a house, for an athlete, I guess all the interviews and all that stuff, it’s like doing your tax paperwork at home, you didn’t get into building houses because you wanted to do the tax paperwork, but it’s just, you just got to do it, it’s part of the business, and that’s what I was trying to explain to Jett.
I know sometimes you’re just tired, or you’re not interested, but it’s just part of it mate, you have to do it.
GateDrop: Do you go back to Australia much, and when you go back there, who do you actually stay with, because I believe you sold everything there, is it just with family?
Lawrence: Yep, so Tate will probably go to Nan and Pops, and then we have friends on the sunny coast we’ll stay with. Obviously lots of friends, that’s our route, so we have multiple places we could stay, and it’s good just to catch up.
GateDrop: Perfect, well enjoy your trip back to Australia, and thank you very much for your time, it’s appreciated, good luck.
Lawrence: My pleasure, thank you.
