The perfect season continues for Honda HRC's Jett Lawrence, as a week after clinching the 450 championship in his first shot, he scored yet another 1-1 at the Yamaha Budds Creek National on Saturday. This one had some challenges, as Jett got a bad start for the first time and had to work his way forward in the first moto. In the second race, teammate Chase Sexton was there to challenge him again, but Sexton tipped over. It appeared Jett could cruise it on in for a victory, until Sexton came roaring back late to provide a last-lap challenge. Jett hung on for his 20th moto win in 20 starts.
They talked about it all in the post-race press conference.
You answered the question for everybody. What if he doesn’t get a start? Can he come through the pack? What will his mindset be? Will he risk it? You answered all of those questions today. Basically without taking any risk, you were able to come through the pack pretty well. It seems like you were very calculated about it, of course. The big thing right now, the championship is put away, the focus is SuperMotocross championship, I’m sure, but in the back of your mind that perfect season, now that has to be a little bit more on the table than it was?
Jett Lawrence: Yeah, I’ve been fortunate with my starts this year. We’ve been starting up there. I’ve never had good starts here. In that first one, I was on a knobby tire and a lot of guys were on the paddle. So, I was at a bit of a disadvantage if my start wasn’t good. So I made it worse. But it [bad start] was fun. Something different. Made me think. This had to be, like you said, more calculated. This track is pretty hard to pass on, so it was more just actually planning out a pass and executing it and make sure you’re in the right spot. It was fun, something different for me. Luckily I was able to get both of my main guys I had to get around, obviously Chase and Dylan. I got them on the first few laps. So I was able to capitalize on that. Obviously the perfect season is there, but it doesn’t change how I’m coming in each weekend. Even during this week, I’m almost more motivated than I was before the championship. So, we’re feeling good. We’re going to try our best. If we get a perfect season that’s great. If not, it’s cool we came close. We have a lot more years to do it. I’m only 20. I’m going to be looking forward to them.
So as we move into next week, two more legit motos on the table. Just go back to work this week and stick with the program?
Yeah, exactly. Just stick to that same program that’s been working. We might even make more tweaks on the bike. Always trying to be better on the bike and off the bike myself. Always trying to improve.
Talk about that big uphill jump after the finish line. It had the knuckle in it. You were kind of floating up over that. Was that just the most efficient thing? Some guys were hitting into it. You were bouncing over it. Just talk through managing that situation.
I don't know. I just do it at this stage. That bump was kind of there all day. It just got bigger and bigger and was easier to get at the end of the day. We didn’t quite get it as good as we wanted, but we got it good a few times. It was kind of just all in that run on that off-camber to see how good you would get it. But it was kind of tricky with a few sections trying to pop some stuff, just because it was so hard-pack. I didn’t want to pop the clutch and lose traction because it was like concrete. It wasn’t even dirt, It was concrete out there. So, at this point it just comes natural. I don’t really know! [laughs] I don’t think of it much.
Obviously Chase was there and then had a mistake I believe and dropped back a little bit, and then he caught up to the back of you again. When did you realize he was back on your rear wheel? Talk about that last lap there.
Those last two laps I knew he got close. I heard he ended up getting the red cross flag also. I thought I got lucky and I thought I was the only one. It’s funny. It’s always the few lapped riders that we lapped that they never, not so much move, the just don’t get out of the way at all. They stay in their main line the whole time and race you, and it’s annoying because their pace is so much slower than ours. It affects my gap, and when Chase gets close then he knows...especially when you’re leading out front. That’s the hard thing about when you’re leading is if someone is close, you’re the first one they have to go through and sometimes they don’t know that you’re lapping them. But then once they do, for the rest of the guys I feel like they’re a little bit aware of it. Some aren’t. Some just go straight back to it. It is what it is. We ended up feeling that last lap and I think I missed all my lines. After I looked back and kind of half slid around, I’m like, okay. So we put our head down and we were trying to execute everything, but we executed like 40% of what we were trying to do, what we normally do. So, we were happy to get away with it.
The scoop tire, you didn’t have it in moto one. That did hurt the start. Do you think it helped to have the regular knobby to be able to take different lines and make the passes, though?
I think definitely so. Like I said before, it wasn’t even dirt. It was basically support that was soft and muddy, and then concrete straight after. So you’d have to be light in the soft support but then also light again on the hard stuff, because otherwise you’d just be spinning. So it was a bit of a mix. At the start you could get away with it because the supports were that soft, but the first moto one was kind of a bit of an "if" thing. After I did the sighting lap, it was like, we might lose quite a bit on the start, but hopefully if we can get just a decent enough start then just kind of gain a little bit more on the track. Thankfully enough we did. Then for the second one I think everyone was on the knobby tire. So we were happy about that.
Let’s talk about that second moto start. Is that one of your best starts ever? That was unbelievable out of the gate.
Yeah, it was good. I had to kind of go off of AP’s first start. He kind of made me look silly in the first one, so I’m like, I can’t make that. He made me look silly that first one. So I’m like, gosh damn it, AP. I’m like, I don't want to do this but I got to do this. And we did it. That second one, it was weird because once we got out of the gate I didn’t feel like it was a great jump or anything fantastic, but once we hit the dirt, I think just a bit lighter weight helps a bit.
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Jett Lawrence Align Media ![Jett Lawrence]()
Jett Lawrence Align Media
When all of a sudden you realized Chase was there, how hard is it to ramp it back up and get your pace back to what you were doing four or five laps earlier? Is that tough, especially with a little pressure there?
On this track yes, just because there’s not much room for error. If you miss that support and you start leaning too early, it can go away pretty quickly. So here it is a little difficult. It also doesn’t help, like I said, when you miss your ruts, because when you miss them, you’re in no-man’s land. So there was a bit of get going, get going, get going out of those last few turns. But it definitely is a little difficult on this track just for how the track conditions were.
Did I see you eating an ice cream cone when you came into this press conference?
Yeah. I’ll burn it off once I walk back to the truck. I still got that kid in me.
Jett, I know you’re a gamer. What’s your go-to Fortnite skin? If you were able to have a Fortnite skin, what would it be like?
I think my go-to is whatever the sweatiest one there is. Brings out the sweat-ness in me. I think if I were to have a skin, I would make me at least 6’2, big muscles, ripped calves. Basically a different whole man, just not me. They can’t forget the calves. I guess in riding gear, with no shirt on. Maybe we cut the riding pants into shorts so you see the calves, you see the muscles. Like baggies. We need jorts. We need to see the muscles. Basically anything that I’m not. I want that.
