With the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship kicking off this weekend, MX Sports hosted several preseason activities yesterday to get riders in front of the media, including a ride day at Fox Raceway at Pala and a Zoom press conference a few hours later for top riders in both the 250 and 450 Classes. Several title contenders were in the two respective press conferences, including 2021 Lucas Oil 250 Class Pro Motocross Champion Jett Lawrence of Honda HRC, his older brother Hunter, who finished third in the standings, and RJ Hampshire of Rockstar Energy Husqvarna, who finished fourth in the standings.
Lawrence went on to claim the 2022 250SX East Region title but missed the Monster Energy AMA Supercross finale following a crash in qualifying. The 18-year-old decided to play it safe and not race in order to fully recover for his title defense. Hunter finished the season second in 250SX West Region behind champion Christian Craig but won four main event wins on the year and looks to keep the ball rolling into this summer. Hampshire is one of the riders under the KTM Group on an all-new generation machine this year. The Florida native alluded to the team struggling with bike setup at the start of supercross, but things came around for the #24 as he earned his maiden supercross win and finished second in points behind Jett Lawrence. Here is what the trio had to say during the press conference.
#1 Jett Lawrence | 2021 250 Class Champion
Jett, last time we saw you at Monster Energy Supercross, you tweaked the ankle a little bit there. How is the preparation coming for motocross over the last couple of weeks?
Jett Lawrence: It was a little bit of a bump in the road. It was a bit of a sprain, but we’re back. It’s still a little bit annoying every now and then, but we’ll be good. We’ll be fine for the outdoors.
You’re coming into this championship as obviously the defending champion. You’re on a different bike to the one that you won the title on last year. What’s the mindset like? Any different pressure-wise? Just tell us about that position.
Nothing really different from last year. Yes, new bike, but we already showed in supercross that it’s a really good bike. So, I think nothing different from last year. Last year it was more like, let’s see where my speed is, see if I have a chance at this title or not. Where this year it’s more I know I am capable of winning a championship, but let’s see if I can put it together. I’m excited to see how this bike is. We’ve been also testing, so it’s feeling great. Should be good.
You’ve raced three times at Pala. You’ve won all three races there. Is there something special for you at Pala? If you don’t win at Pala, does that mean it’s a complete disaster since you’ve won every other time you’ve been there?
I don't know. It’s funny because I think Pala is probably one of the tracks I dislike. It’s so brutal on your body, so I’m not a fan of Pala. We’ve had some pretty good motos there, so I can’t complain about it too much. I’m excited to get these two rounds, the Cali rounds, done and start getting onto more of the East Coast tracks. Those are the real fun ones. If I win, that’s great. If I don’t, it’s not the end of the world as long as I am still in reach of the front boys.
Hunter Lawrence | 3rd in 2021 250 Class
Hunter, for the season that you’re coming off of right now in supercross, you had quite a lot of hype behind you. You’re a national guy anyway. We know that outdoors is your forte. How does it feeling coming into this year, just another year older, another year faster, another year smarter?
Hunter Lawrence: It feels good. Looking forward to kicking it off. Obviously feeling really good with the bike and my body and stuff. Just looking to get it out of the way. It’s going to be a long series, 24 motos. Just take it moto by moto.
RJ Hampshire | 4th in 2021 250 Class
RJ, it was rumored during the preseason that you may be stepping up to the 450 class, but obviously you’re here in the 250 press conference. So, was there anything in those rumors?
RJ Hampshire: Yeah. I was a 450 guy for about four days. I got the call last week. Actually, two weeks ago. We heard Malcolm was going to be out for a little while. How the contracts are set up, we needed two 450 guys to go. I was all for it. I rode Malcolm’s bike a couple times in Florida and then I’m like, “I need to come out and get a setting.” I came out and tested Monday and Tuesday at Glen Helen and felt really good. Felt awesome, actually. Did a moto at the end of Tuesday and whenever we finished it was like, “All right. Sweet. We’re going racing on this 450.” We happened to bring the 250 out that day, and before we made our minds up we wanted to see how we were on both of them. So, I jumped on the 250 and within four laps I was pretty dang close to the same speed on that as I was on the 450. We kind of all came together as a group, Austria, KTM, Husqvarna, the whole team, and felt like for the brand our best bet is to stay on the 250 and really have a fight in us. It was cool. I kind of showed my value and my worth a little bit on a 450. I was excited. The team was excited. But, we can only control this year. Contract is to race the 250. Just going to go out and give my all in this.
While you did kind of have a tough supercross season, it was a lot of one of your most successful by your own standards, just because you managed to finish the entire series. So, how do you plan to continue that consistency into the motocross season?
That was huge for myself and for the team. We struggled a lot with setup and where we were on the bike for most of it. I really feel like we’ve got a pretty good base coming into outdoors. This bike is good outdoors. It’s got a good platform already. The guys over in the MXGP’s have been racing and doing well on it. So, it gives us a little bit more confidence coming in. Outdoors has been well for me the last couple years, so it will be nice. I just want to be in the battle again and click it off and take it moto by moto.
You were pretty upfront about trying to find the right settings for the new bike in supercross. Has it come together better and more quickly for motocross?
Yeah, it has. We kind of had that 450 dilemma in there a little bit, so I set my bike up in Florida. We tested two days on the 250 and felt like I got a really good base. I had been on the 450 for a couple weeks and was making a lot of progress on that, and found some things that kind of translated a bit to the 250. Then once I got back on that, we were straight back on our base setup we tested the time. I feel like we have a really good setup coming in. That’s where we struggled before. We didn’t really have a base, so it was kind of like we were always guessing going into the weekends. At least now I know where to go and have a good feel to what direction we want to go with it.
Watch the full preseason 250 Class press conference below:
Main image by Spencer Owens
