Ahead of the first round of the 250SX East Coast Championship in the 2023 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series, several of the top talents expected to compete at the front this year scoped out the Houston track on press day. We caught up with Hunter Lawrence, Michael Mosiman, and Jeremy Martin to get some insight into their expectations as we get ready to drop the gate.

Hunter Lawrence | Honda HRC

Racer X: Alright, Hunter Lawrence, first round of East, take me through your off season a little bit and how you're feeling coming in.
Hunter Lawrence: Good, Happy to be here. I love a football stadium. Put a roof over it, it's great. It's awesome, you know. Not a massive fan of the baseball stadiums. I don't know why. Just the tracks, the vibe, I don't know, I just like the roof on it, you know, the roof on it's good. Even a football stadium without a roof is better than a baseball stadium, I think. But each to their own mate. The offseason has been great. I just want to go racing. I just wanted to be five rounds in already.

We've heard your name a lot already thrown around from a couple interviews that we had today. Does it feel almost like you have a target on your back, I guess as being kind of the guy that people are looking at.
Yeah, for sure, but it can all change, you know, who knows what can happen?Obviously, I know where I'm at and what goals I'm here to achieve.But yeah, for sure, you know, based on my season last year, which built on the previous one, you know, it's only natural that the targets kind of for me now, but like I said before, I'm not underestimating anyone. There's a lot of good guys here, a lot of race winners, you know, some vet guys, the young lads coming through obviously.And even though I consider myself a young lad [laughs]. No, it'll be good.It will be some great racing.

I know that, like you said, it's exciting to be back on the east under stadium roods and stuff like that, but you were really good on the west with kind of that hard packed dirt and all that stuff like that. Do you expect any sort of bike changes through the first couple of rounds to kind of adapt to some of these East Coast tracks again?
Good point. I mean, we've done we've done some cool testing this year in in a sense to prepare ourselves for different conditions more or less than just testing to have a comfortable bike, which is really cool. We haven't been in a position like that before, so it'll be cool, but we'll see. We know we got Daytona in Atlanta, which we're definitely a curveball, but I mean we were pretty solid last year on the bike set up. Once we got our deal, we were pretty confident and happy with it. So, looking to pick up where we left off.

Michael Mosiman | Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/GasGas

Alright, Michael Mosiman, first round of East. Well, first of all, just kind of take me through your feelings here, finally getting ready to go racing for your series out here?
Michael Mosiman: I'm excited. It's been a long offseason and I can't wait to go racing. It's been weird being at Anaheim and in the stands and not on the track. And honestly, I think it's more scary to watch than it is to race. So, I'm looking forward to getting out there and yeah, sussing it out. Track looks really good. I like this place and yeah, looking forward to season.

Unfortunately, we heard that some of the competition got hurt just last week, so it maybe kind of thinned the field out, but where do you actually see the challenges coming forward in terms of battling for a championship this year?
You know, Hunter Lawrence is gonna be strong and I mean, Jeremy Martin not to be counted out, you know, he's gonna be strong. You’ve got all sorts of rookies that who knows what they can do, right? I think that the main big one right now that comes to mind is Hunter Lawrence, but there's, I'm sure there's a lot of people. I just saw Nate Thrasher, he's strong too. I can't count him out, you know, no disrespect anyone. I'm not really focused on the competition as much as I am on myself. So, I think that's gonna be the biggest challenge is just doing what I need to do.

As we come into this first round, is it one of those things where you're just trying to kind of come out with a good first round? Or do you want to win the first round and kind of set a tone?
You're gonna have to find out [laughs]. I'd love to win it; I want to win it. Our series is short, and I think it does set the tone pretty big. So yeah, I'd love to win.

Jeremy Martin | Muc-Off/FXR/ClubMX Yamaha

Jeremy Martin East coast first round, just kind of tell me what you're feeling and take us through your mindset going in this first round.
Jeremy Martin: The mindset is good man. I'm first off, I'm grateful to be here. It's been a long time.I haven't raced since Dallas Supercross last year and yeah, vibes good. A little nervous, excited.It's kind of what we live for, right?

Like you said, it's been a long time. When you have that time off, I think maybe the expectations changed a little bit. You want to win, but is there like, “I just want to make it through these first couple of rounds healthy and kind of get the ball rolling?”
Yeah, I mean I think so. Like obviously like I've always had the speed, right? I've won two championships outdoors. Big thing for me right now is let's just, let's make this season. That's a big thing in my bucket list this year thatI really want to do. If the wins there, great, and if I don't feel great, I'm going to do everything I can. But I'm just not gonna send it, I guess you could say.

And also, being on the ClubMX program, we heard you just kind of locked it down this offseason and put in the time at Club. So, what's that been like changing up a little bit.
Yeah man, the Club life, living in a living in a cabin out there an hour and a half away from Charlotte. It kind of reminds me of how I grew up in Minnesota. There's no cell phone service, you guys know every year at the national.I'm like, “Wow, this is a flashback to when I was 10 to 12 years old.” But I enjoy it, you know, I mean, it's a simple living and, I got a dirt bike, and I got my truck and everything like that, and if I want to get in into Charlotte and go have some fun, just get an Airbnb or hotel, and go live my best life.