When comes time to deliver there isn’t many better than Jett Lawrence. When the pressure is on Jett rises to the top, and with all the hype, the expectation, then the heat race crash, and then his brother Hunter not making the main, when it was time to step up, Jett produced the goods and fired a warning shot to the rest of the field, he’s already the man to beat!
Holeshot to checkered flag, it was the perfect race, with Lawrence holding a small gap over the battling Jason Anderson and Cooper Webb to win the most prestigious supercross race of the season, Anaheim one, in style and start his 450 career in perfect fashion – probably the worst thing to happen for his rivals hoping to derail his momentum from 2022. It didn’t happen.
On his win, the first to win his first ever 450 supercross, Jett said: “It’s an unreal thing to kind of grasp, you just think with how many years this sport has been around that someone has done it before. I’m definitely grateful and to do it for Honda and Red Bull and get up in the history books for them. It’s an awesome feeling, it’s a good start to the season hopefully we can maintain and keep charging.”
Jett mentioned he was really nervous all day on the podium (he didn’t show it) so we asked if leading helped calm the nerves and how hard he was pushing to keep Jett behind him.. “the nerves after first few corners went away, obviously the first few corners are pretty hectic but once I was able to see kind of clear track and that Jason wasn’t too close to make a pass, it was kind of alright let’s get a gap. I think we got to three seconds and it was alright let’s try and hold it here and not make any silly mistakes and kind of conserve energy just incase at the end, these guys are pretty fit and they keep going for the whole moto. So kind of just, not waiting, but store energy for the last few laps but I was able to have a big enough gap that I could just kind of cruise it in thankfully.”
Jett was then asked about his comment in the pre-season about going after McGraths 72 wins… “In all seriousness about that, it probably might not get done, it’s a lot of race wins. Coming in you have got to set such a high goal for yourself that’s going to make you go a little crazy for it and make you work hard. It’s not meaning really that I’m going to do it, it’s I want to have a goal, if I didn’t have a goal I would be happy just to be here and race around in whatever positionn I wanted. (Winning one) It doesn’t change anything really. The people can say what they say, it doesn’t really affect me, you can see where we are now. It was more of setting a goal for myself and to make sure I wake up every day with that on my mind to make sure I push a little bit extra and have that self-motivation for myself. So far it’s paid off, but these guys are really good so it could be the complete opposite next week, I could suck!”
To understand more about Jett’s mentality and ability, make sure to watch this interview with his searingly honest dad…
Article: Jonathan McCready
Image: Feld Motor Sports, Inc
