After another overall win that once again showed just how brilliant Jett Lawrence is on a dirt bike, under pressure, or pushing the pace, the Australian genius just delivers when it matters.
His technique is the talk of the sport, especially in America and he was asked where he learned to ride so smoothly and Jett revealed his jump to a 250 at 14 when he was a Suzuki rider in EMX250 and had Stefan Everts, Harry Everts and Ken Roczen’s dad all around for advice, really formed a foundation for his future.
Jett said: “Everyone rides how they feel most comfortable, you know, and that’s where I feel comfortable at. If I need to kind of send it a bit more and rev it a bit more, I can. But I mean, I don’t like hearing my bike hit the rev limiter much, you know. My bikes also like to be ridden in that meatier section in the power, so I kind of surround my bike and set up around that, you know, and I feel like when I’m able to coast and stuff like that, it’s when I kind of ride close to my best, it’s just when I’m flowing. I don’t have to use extra energy.
“I think I just had that style ever since I was young. I mean, I think I got it from when I was first hopped on to a 250 when I was 14. I was tiny, so it wasn’t very big to muscle it, so I kind of would use the torque and try and use the power a bit more and to help me out, because I couldn’t just muscle it and slam everywhere, and kind of, especially for the braking bumps, I was so tiny, so I think it mainly comes from that, and that’s kind of how I prefer to ride my bike, you know.”
On managing the gap as he did all day at Thunder Valley before picking up the pace when he needed too, Jett said: “When I have a really good flow and I feel like I can pick it up, I can .It’s like, depending on the track, today it’s like, you don’t really want to fully send it, just because these ruts are so deep, if you try to go any faster and lean it over more, it’s going to grab the bottom of the fork lug on the inside, and then it pitches you up. So it’s kind of got to be patient, stuff like that.
“I mean, a few times, once AP got around me, I kind of had to send it a bit, and I think that was the squirrelliest I was. Because you just got to give, like, these guys are riding really well, so you got to give that little extra sometimes when they’re at the right time. But it was a tricky track today, more so, to try and manage, because it’s very easy to make a mistake and try and looking for the good lines when you’re leading is hard, because you don’t want to take a bad line and have them hit the good line, especially when Eli was close or AP in the first one.
“So it’s like, it’s a bit of a tricky kind of position at this track, but normally when I feel comfortable and stuff like that, and it’s a little more open, you can kind of pick your lines, I feel like it’s a little easier to manage.!
