Jett Lawrence looked somewhat back to his best with a scintillating display of constant momentum to go 1-1 at Hangtown and establish himself once again as the man.
Jett pulled away from Deegan in race one then an in-form Hunter Lawrence when Jett dropped his laptime by two seconds at the the halfway point in moto two to break his brother and get a gap he could control.
And the ankle still isn’t 100% yet…
Jett said: “I worked on my starts a lot this week, I didn’t ride as much to try to save my ankle as well. But starts was a big thing, starting up there helps a lot, especially with HJ, with how good his starts are.
He also said the fastest lap he posted in Q2 set the tone for the day when we asked if it gave him the confidence back: “The first qualifier I had a few things I needed to fix, I never linked a good lap together. And then in the second qualifying, I linked most of my stuff, I think I had one mistake in it, but it was a pretty good lap, and I was happy with that. And definitely sets the tone going into the motos, you’re a little more happy and excited going into it. So, it helps and like I said, worked on my starts a lot so that helps as well.”
On the second speed burst at the halfway point Jett told us: “Obviously it’s my brother, I know him very, very well, if we try to set a good pace to start with, he’s going to try and be there the entire race and it’s going to be hard to break him to both get a good flow and it’s going to be a long moto. So, I thought if I could spend those first 15 minutes where I can find a flow where I am using the least amount of energy, I knew if he was there trying to make a pass, I would use a little more.
“Because obviously I knew this track was kind of one lined, like he was saying earlier it’s a prick to try and pass on. I thought if I could do that, and then halfway if I could do just one really fast lap and try to get a gap on him and just try to break him a little in a way. Or to get a gap and try to pull away and thankfully it did because if not I really had nothing else to try and pull on him. But it worked out and I just tried to push to get more and more of a gap because he doesn’t give up through the whole moto. Was able to get more of a gap and made a few mistake and got a little sketchy so I was like, ‘All right just gonna back it down a smidge in a few spots.’ And was able to get the win in that last one so I was happy with it.”
On ankle, Jett said it wasn’t as bad as at Pala: “Today it’s definitely not as sore as last week, which is good. Obviously, I got running shoes on, the dad kicks to try and help with walking so style’s out the window there. But this track kind of helped out my foot and I knew I would get to this point at some point I just wasn’t sure when.”
Next week he will have MXGP points leader, Lucas Coenen, on the gate, so we asked if he was looking forward to the additional competition...”Yeah, it’s always cool to see two other brothers obviously doing really well in Europe, for them to come here it’s sick. Hope they’ll have some good fun here, the tracks are different to Europe, I feel like they’re a lot more fun here. So, yeah, they’re gonna enjoy it, obviously learn some things for when they come here next year. I think they’ll have a good time, it’s going to be fun. “
