It wasn’t as dramatic as 1993 when 250 supercross rookie, Jeremy McGrath, passed reigning champ Jeff Stanton at Anaheim at round three of the series that saw McGrath take his first ever big bike supercross win and start an new era for the sport, but Jett Lawrence catching and passing Eli Tomac for the first time in his career may be as symbolic for the future of the sport as that McGrath’s pivotal pass on Stanton, 21 years ago.
Tomac has been the man to beat on speed and titles over the last five years, only a torn achilles last season and a bizarre couple of races back when he was battling Dungey prevented Tomac from being a four time supercross champ.
But it looks like the new generation is coming and Jett Lawrence is the ultimate embodiment of that generation, a big personality with a smooth calculated style in contrast to Tomac’s reserved personality and all out attack with the clutch and the throttle on track!
Detroit was the first night Jett had to pass Eli in the main event and he had to catch him to do it, with Lawrence very respectful of the champ but understanding that catching and passing a legend of the sport for the first time was a big deal for him, saying:
“It was a cool accomplishment to catch and pass Eli… So it was a cool accomplishment and just happy I was able to fight back to a podium position.”
Jett added in the press conference:
“It was just kind of learning obviously how he kind of flows and kind of learning where a kink in the armor could be almost,” Lawrence said. “And it was cool to kind of follow him because like obviously, nowadays, it’s not like, the exact same as the beast he used to be. But it’s still Eli Tomac”.
“So, it was kind of cool to follow him, just learn off him, and then I just got close enough to where we can kind of maybe make a pass. I was looking forward to a battle, but I was able to kind of just get on the inside of a little bit and just give a still leave a bit of room and then just put my head down. I kept on trying to see if I can chip away to Jason, but I just ended up running out of time.”
Jett gets around Tomac for a podium position!
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Words: Jonathan McCready
