Darren Lawrence sold everything in Australia to make sure his sons have the best chance of success in motocross. Five/six years later and both boys are champions and some of the biggest stars in the sport!
Stephen Megarry caught up with Darren to get his thoughts on a podium for Australia at the MXoN being back in Europe, the difference in tracks and the families success.
Darren, Ernee 2023, could you sum up the weekend for us?
Not too bad, suspension was not good, Showa didn’t allow us to bring our suspension guy for some reason, some political thing, so we just had what we had. The first thing Hunter said was, ‘Whao its the first time we felt we have an American motorcycle now, just really snappy, really responsive.’ Obviously for supercoss, and our tracks are so soft and so ploughed, so you want that response. And that’s what he said,’whao you have to be so good on the throttle’. It’s a bit of a boo boo on our behalf, but you just gotta ride the best we can and remember how to ride euro hard square edge. It made me realise that our tracks in America our motocross stuff is really consistent. They’re all ploughed there, all soft bumps, Washougal is really about the only one that matches this one.
As a dad and a fan how do you sum up this weekend?
I think its good, it’s unreal. I often say to the boys I’d love to come back to Europe every year for two or three weeks. Because Supercross, that’s our main thing but it wrecks your motocross, its a different riding and it takes a while and I’d love to come back to Europe for the base where you have to ride technically good, I wish that.
So it was good for us to look from a distance and go okay, we are getting Americanized because Supercross is just so important.
And what’s it like coming back to France, obviously a few difficult years here. Do you speak much French?
No sorry, I tried and I tried Dutch but I was hopeless, too old and dumb mate I’m afraid. But it was good actually to get a Bratwurst and some frites and mayo.
Its amazing the journey you have been on from the difficulties of being here to getting to the top of the sport?
It was a part we had to do, there is no, and I tell this to the Australians, I tell this to so many American amateurs, go to Europe, ride a winter in that sand it just creates a better technical rider.
Jett was phenomenal out there today, especially in that last moto, such a technical track, he just rose above the rest. You must be super proud?
Yeah just hit the marks, it’s good, you get that start, on this track you can only {push so hard}, the tracks give you so much speed and you can’t ride over that speed. This track was important to get a reasonable start. The first one he went down and got back to 6th but there’s no catching them leaders. You can salvage what you can salvage that was good. Jett did Jett, he was patient. He impresses me for such a young kid, he’s patient.
Especially yesterday, he got the bad start, half way he never took any chances or any risks and then just went for it at the end…
Yeah, yeah, he’s good. The boys are really strong. Their technique, they save a lot of energy the way they ride a motorcycle, so that allows them to go faster at the end. But when it was greasy in that first one, Hunter said, ‘Oh my god.’ He said it was, ‘like riding on ice’. He just had to wait for the track to come around, and then he could get going again.
Are you hanging around Europe a few days or are you straight back?
No, we’ve got two weeks off and that’s it. So I’m going home and I’m going to work on an old Camaro I have – tinker on a car. But the boys are going to go to Switzerland for a week or so and hang out with Cynthia’s mum and dad and Jeremy Seewer.
Thanks for taking the time…
I appreciate it.
Image: Nigel McKinstry
