Open Mic Jett Lawrence

Before we even made it to Saturday’s St. Louis Supercross, Honda HRC’s Jett Lawrence saw a close title fight turn into a massive championship lead in the blink of an eye when Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki’s Cameron McAdoo crashed on press day and withdrew from the race. The extent of McAdoo’s injury is still unknown, but he was forced to miss the sixth round of the 250SX East Championship and Lawrence’s 11-point lead on McAdoo would surely expand.

After a second-place overall behind RJ Hampshire in the Triple Crown at St. Louis, Lawrence’s lead now sits at 34-points over McAdoo with Hampshire now slotting into third at 41-points down. Lawrence spoke with the media after the race about his up and down night and his outlook on the championship with McAdoo now sidelined.

Jett, on nights like this when it seems like obviously the potential victory gets away from you, you don’t seem overly frustrated on the podium. What’s the feeling for you inside? How frustrated do you get? Or is it a case of still on the podium, still good points, and obviously good for the series as well?
Jett Lawrence: I was looking forward to maybe going all clean sweep. RJ was making it for sure hard on me, getting awesome starts. I sucked on starts. I was thinking I should be okay this week because I didn’t do them on Thursday, or any starts this week. I’m like, should be okay. Guess it wasn’t. It sucks. That third moto kind of sucks. I gave the guy as much room as I thought, but I guess you just have to be more cautious around them. I blame more on myself than the other guy. We all get sketchy in the whoops. I should have known and gave him even more room. RJ deserves tonight. He was there each time. Had good starts and actually put himself in a good position, where I was a bit all over the map. Doesn’t really change much. I got a fairly comfortable points lead. I wish I could have kept the win streak going, but it is what it is. I still got second, thankfully. We’re just going to keep on charging and go into Atlanta and hopefully maybe we can finish it off sooner than later.

As you said, your starts weren’t the greatest tonight, but it just seemed like it was more chaotic back in the pack there. Daniel [Blair] spoke to Phil Nicoletti after that restart as well. Was it more chaotic back there? You managed to pick your way through quick, but that last one looked like you just had to take your time because there were people everywhere.
Yeah, it was. Everyone was taking up a lot of the track. I just took my time. I was still pushing pretty hard. This layout was very simple. Not simple; it was a very basic layout where everyone was doing the same rhythms. So, it wasn’t like Indy where Cameron and I were doing different rhythms, like three in, quads, and the top guys doing that where some of the privateers weren’t. Everyone was so close in time. It was literally just see how much you can actually make up just in corner speed, really, which made it a lot more close in racing tonight. It was a little sketchy being in the mid-pack. There were some guys going everywhere. I got pretty lucky in that first race with some Lady Luck. I just had to be calm through those first few laps with being that far back in the pack.

You’ve gotten really good at coming back from crashes earlier in races. Are you tired of doing that yet?
You obviously don’t really want that at all. Tonight, I think it was probably one of the hardest ones, because everyone was so close in times. So, it wasn’t like I was making heaps of time in this section or that section. We were all pretty close, so it was a lot more difficult tonight. No, I’m not a fan of it. I’d rather stay up there and stay on two wheels and at least be in the top five on the first two or three laps, so I at least have a good chance.

Unfortunately, Cameron wasn’t able to race tonight. When you heard that news, I know going into the rest of the season, every race is individual, but does that change your outlook, championship, managing that throughout the rest of the year?
No, not really. I was there when he did it. To be honest, I was truly bummed, really. From last year to now, he didn’t do anything wrong, really. He was riding fantastic. I had more big mistakes than him. He was riding really good this year. Truly bummed. It’s not easy to be at the top of this sport. You can ask any of the riders. It’s definitely difficult. It’s a 24/7 job. I was bummed when I seen that. He knew straightaway that it was the collarbone broken, or something. It’s a shame. You never want to see anyone get hurt like that. My mentality still stayed the same. I want to either just keep on getting race wins and kind of click off overall wins, which tonight didn’t really go to plan, but it is what it is. I got a podium. It hasn’t really changed much. Just trying to finish this off earlier.

Watch the full 250 post-race press conference below: