Main image: Jeffrey Herlings in 2013, photo by Sarah Gutierrez
With this being an off-weekend in the AMA Pro Motocross Championship, we get to hit pause for a moment on the Lawrence brothers' amazing starts in the first four rounds of their respective classes. Hunter has won all four rounds in the 250 class while Jett has done likewise in the 450 class. It's the best start ever for Team Honda in the history of AMA Motocross, which they have been competing in since 1973 and the introduction of the Honda CR250M Elsinore. Of the Lawrence brothers, Jett is off to the best start, as he has yet to lose a moto. So how does Jett's 8-0 moto start line up with some other streaks in the SX/MX world?
In 1975 Can-Am's Jimmy Ellis won all four rounds of the very-young AMA Supercross Championship, but this was back when there were multiple "motos" at each round. For instance, the opening round at Dallas had four motos, two on the first night and two on the second night. Ellis won the first three motos but then got beat by SX rookie Marty Smith in the last moto. Ellis then went 6-1-2 in the three-moto Daytona round but still got the overall.
Bob Hannah won the first 10 motos of the '78 AMA 250 Pro Motocross Championship, sweeping both motos at Hangtown, Racing World (CA), Rio Bravo (TX), Herman (NE), and Southwick before getting beat in the first moto of the sixth round at Lake Whitney Cycle Ranch near Waco, Texas. Hannah just had an off day in the very hot motos in Texas but did manage to win the second moto and keep his overall streak alive. It would go to eight straight but then came the 9th round at RedBud when he broke down in the first moto and ended his run at an undefeated season.
Mark Barnett won the first 14 motos and the seven straight overalls to start the '81 season in the 125 class, only to break his collarbone before the eighth and final round, preventing him from the first perfect season in AMA Pro Motocross.
Those of us who were watching in the nineties will never forget Jeremy McGrath's run at the perfect AMA Supercross season, as "Showtime" won the first 13 rounds in a row. He was two rounds from finishing with a perfect 15-0 season in SX, until rival Jeff Emig's hometown race in St. Louis. Emig put in a very-inspired 20 laps to topple Jeremy and end his run at the perfect season.
Ricky Carmichael's sophomore season in 125 SX in 1998 was a harbinger of things to come. The Spitfire/Pro Circuit Kawasaki rider won the first eight rounds of the 125 East Region to earn the title, and then also win the 125 East/West Showdown in Las Vegas for a perfect 9-0 season. RC then won both motos at the opening round of the 125 AMA Pro Motocross Championship at Glen Helen, only to crash hard off the start at the next round at Hangtown and finish 8-1, ending his streak.
Let's move to Europe for a moment. In the early 2000s, both Stefan Everts and Mickael Pichon had some very impressive seasons on the Grand Prix circuit. Several times both the Belgian and the Frenchmen went on long streaks, though never to start a season. For instance, in 2002 Pichon won 11 of the 12 rounds of the 250cc World Championship, which was utilizing a one-race format that season. However, the one race Pichon lost was the third round in Germany. And in 2006, Everts won at astonishing 27 motos out of 30, finishing second twice and third once in 15 rounds. As far as overalls go, he captured a McGrath-like 14 out of 15 rounds in his final season. But one of the few motos he lost was the very first one in his home country, Belgium. To find the longest moto streak to start an FIM Motocross World Championship in the period of 2000 to 2010, you have to look to the 650cc class in 2003 and another great Belgian hero, Joel Smets. Riding a KTM, Smets won the first seven rounds in a row before finally getting stopped at the eighth round at Namur. The only other race he would lose? The last one in France…to Everts! He rode all three classes that day and won all three. That pretty much single-handedly ended the era of the one-moto format.
At the same time, some of the greatest streaks in AMA Motocross history were happening here in the U.S. In 2002, after switching to Team Honda, Ricky Carmichael posted his first perfect season, starting and finishing 24-0 in 12 rounds. He then won the first two motos of '03, giving him a 26-moto winning streak before it ended. The man who ended the streak? Kevin Windham on the Factory Connection CRF450, taking the first moto at Hangtown.
Windham would top RC again later that summer at both Unadilla and Washougal, but then Carmichael closed out the season with a six-moto winning streak, with sweeps at Spring Creek, Broome-Tioga, and Steel City. Then Carmichael jumped over to a CRF450 himself in the summer of '04 and won all 24 motos again. That's 30 moto wins in a row. Then RC switched to Suzuki for '05 and started the outdoor season with four more moto wins, giving him a remarkable and unmatched 34-moto winning streak in AMA Pro Motocross. The man who finally stopped him this time? Chad Reed at Southwick, where Ricky fell in the first moto. But RC he didn't lose an overall all that season, running his overall wins streak to 27 in a row, going back to August '03. He finally lost at the '06 opener at Hangtown, where he crashed in the first turn of the first moto while leading, and James Stewart took the win.
From '02 through '04, Stewart was having similar dominance in the 125 class aboard his Chevy Trucks Kawasaki. But he also had some big crashes that kept him from perfection. For instance, a huge crash at the '03 Las Vegas SX finale cost him the first four rounds of the 125 Nationals, as well as the title. But when he did start up at the fifth round at Budds Creek, he would sweep the last 14 motos in a row. He then swept the first four rounds in '04, all eight motos, before a first-turn crash in the first moto at RedBud. When you add his last five moto wins to end '02, the 14 he won in '03, and the eight he started with in '04, James Stewart won 27 straight 125 National motos that he entered.
Both Reed and Stewart flirted with perfect seasons in 125SX, Reed in '02 and Stewart in '04. Riding a Yamaha of Troy YZ250F, Reed won the first six of seven 125 East Region events before getting upset in the last round at the Pontiac Silverdome by Suzuki rider Branden Jesseman. Two years later Stewart also won the first six 125 East rounds and was heavily favored for a season sweep before he crashed in practice at the Indianapolis round and suffered a concussion, causing him to miss that night's race.
Stewart would have one more shot at perfection in 2008 and he used it wisely. In a summer of pure domination aboard a Kawasaki KX450F, he led almost every lap of the 2008 AMA 450 Pro Motocross Championships and won every moto with relative ease, posting a perfect 24-0. (A great feature or debate for Weege and Matthes on their Leatt Re-Raceables Podcast would be to compare and contrast Carmichael's '04 perfect season to Stewart's '08 perfect season. They did record an episode with Stewart chronicling his perfect 2008 summer.)
In 2018 Eli Tomac, then with Kawasaki, started his 450 Pro Motocross season with six straight moto wins before being topped by Red Bull KTM's Marvin Musquin in the opening moto at High Point. Eli's overall wins streak would end at five straight before Musquin again topped him, this time for the overall at Southwick. That was the most recent "best start" on the AMA circuit before Jett's current streak to start '23.
So let's move back over to Europe for some more comparisons. In 2013 Jeffrey Herlings won the first 13 motos of MX2 before being defeated in Brazil by someone you've been hearing about lately on the AMA circuit, 15-time Spanish MX Champion Jose Antonio Oliva Butron, currently of the Wildcat Racing team. (It was one of those weird "SuperFinals" races where the top 20 from the 450 and 250 classes raced together their second moto together and were scored separately.) Button ended that '13 season ranked third in MX2 behind only Herlings and future MX2 World Champion Jordi Tixier...as in, the next year's MX2 World Champion. That's because while Herlings had another dominant season, at one point winning 18 motos in a row, he crashed in a charity minicycle race and broke his femur, opening the door to the Frenchman Tixier to steal the title.
In 2016 Herlings again started on a huge streak, winning the first 14 MX2 motos in a row before his streak was ended by yet another current AMA rider you've been hearing about this summer, Dylan Ferrandis. And then in 2018 Herlings won 17 motos in a row, now in the MXGP class, but it was the last 17 motos, not the first 17.
So those are some of the bigger moto-winning streaks that 8-0 Jett Lawrence has ahead of him, but here’s something to consider: this is Jett’s first season in this class! He’s a rookie 450 racer, and outside of his impressive performance (also a win) at last year’s Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations, he is racing this bike for the first time, and already igniting some conversations about this season’s place in history. It’s a heck of a season for a rookie. How long can he keep it going?