Add another accolade to Jett Lawrence's recent treasure trove, as now he's won his first-ever AMA 450 Supercross race, and he's done it in his very first start. He's the first to ever really accomplish such a feat, as other rookie round-one winners like Josh Grant and Ken Roczen had competed in at least one 450SX race before their first win. (Some riders in the earliest days of supercross won their first race, such as Marty Tripes winning the first-ever supercross. So that's a win in your first start. But someone had to win the first one!)
Anyway, Jett grabbed the early lead in the Anaheim 1 main, fended off an attack from Jason Anderson, and then did his usual steady management of a gap to bring it home. The Honda HRC rider spoke to the media after the race.
History was made tonight. You were the first one in the 50 year history of supercross doing your first, , actual 450 Supercross race. I want you to talk a little about what that means to you and what it means to you and Honda.
Jett Lawrence: Yeah. No, I found that out once I got up on the podium by Will [Christien] and it's a unreal thing to kind of grasp, really, just because you just think with how many years this sport's been around, you thought someone has done it before. But, the sport’s took that many years for someone to do it and I'm definitely grateful and I'm happy to do it for Honda and Red Bull. They've been behind me for a very long time now. So, it's good to give back in that type of way and get up in the history books for them. So, it's an awesome feeling. It’s a good start to the season. Hopefully we can just kind of keep doing the same or just kind of maintain, keep maintaining and keep charging.
You said on the podium you were nervous today. Once you got into the lead, got the holeshot, were you still nervous?
No, obviously after the first few corners went away a bit cause it's kind of…obviously those first few turns are pretty hectic, but once I was able to see kind of clear track and know that Jason wasn't too close to make a pass, it was kind of “All right, let's get a gap.” I think we got to like three seconds, so, all right, let's see, try and hold it here and just not make any silly mistakes and just kind of conserve energy just in case anything happens at the end. These guys are pretty fit, so they keep going the whole moto. So, it's kind of just, not waiting, but like just, yeah, storing energy for the last few laps, but I was able to have it be enough to get that gap that I could just kind of cruise it in, thankfully.
There's been talk about a comment you made about 72 wins and I know some people in high places were like, really need to get one first. Do you have anything to say about that now that you have one? Does your thoughts are the change?
No, and in all seriousness about that, I mean, it's just, it probably might not get done. It's a lot of race wins but I just, coming in, you gotta set such a high goal for yourself that's gonna make you go a little crazy for it and make sure you work hard. So it's not meant like, I'm gonna do it, it's more of just like I wanna have myself a goal because if I didn't have a goal, then I'd just be happy to be here and just race around and finish whatever position I get. I mean, the people can say what they say, it doesn't really affect me really. We see where we are now. It was just more of a kind of setting a goal for myself just to make me make sure I wake up every day and have that on my mind. Make me go push that little bit extra and have that self motivation for myself. And so far it's paid off. We'll see. These guys are really, really good. So, it could be the opposite next week and I could suck [laughs]. So, I don't know.
For math’s sake, that's now 71 to go.
Yeah I can't count that high. [Laughs] Once we get to two digits I’m done! Someone else will have to keep count of the tally.
I know you want to win every race that you're in. But is it possible that sometimes you learn more running second? And if so, did you learn anything in that heat running behind Webb?
I learned my suspension is way too stiff like that! Yeah, I mean, I think, like the saying, I mean, you learn your most stuff on the days you lose really. So, we're also gonna try and win as much as we can, but yeah, it's, it's a lot harder to win every single round of Supercross. There's a reason why it hasn't been done yet. So we're just gonna make sure we're coming in each weekend. Just keep on gathering information for myself, learning the other riders, learning how they race, and just general whatever situation I'm kind of dealt with. I mean, if it’s a third place it’s a third place for that night, if it’s a fourth it’s a fourth. I think that's a big thing, learning and adapting with the situations you're in and even if the bike's off. In that heat race I kept kind of pushing a little bit just ‘cause I was already a little uncomfortable with the suspension, but I kept trying to make it work a bit and it wasn't quite it, and I ended up making a silly mistake, but nothing too crazy. So, but definitely excited to learn more throughout the season.
There’s a lot of different collabs that are going on for riders right now. Does it feel like the sport’s kind of really getting to open up? With the fan zone you’re trying to do some new things. Can you discuss that?
Yeah kinda similar to what Anderson said, just trying to get it closer to main stream, closer to F1. That’s the pinnacle of motorsports. You try to get the fans close to Hunter and I, and you don’t really get that in F1 or other sports. You’re so far away from the paddock. Here you can get that personal touch. For me it’s always cool to meet a lot of new faces, and you never know what can happen in those situations. Maybe you meet a car brand or a clothing company. You never know what can happen. Definitely gets more opportunities to make the sport bigger, and it’s going that way, thankfully.
Many of the media pieces you did for Feld Entertainment, you spoke about racing Eli and becoming one of those legendary kind of guys here. You are on the podium, you've beat arguably the greatest field we've had in a very, very long time. Does that set it in now or is it like a season thing for you? You want to do this every single round?
It's a season thing for me. I mean, you look at last year, I mean, Eli had a few bad rounds where each had seventh or a fourth or a fifth. And that next round he comes back and he wins it. So that Eli/Jett battle will definitely come soon. He's a two time SX champion for a reason. So I'm looking forward to it. But then again, also, we have how many other guys? We have Cooper out there, we have these dudes [Anderson and Sexton on the podium]. So, I mean, it's a, a stacked field. It's definitely cool to get a win but it's more of a season thing for me just to try and get the championship at the end of the day.
Do you know what background you’re running next week?
It will be a red plate with the same number color.
Can you touch on the differences the way a track breaks down in a longer race compared to the Lites class?
I mean, it's been for quite a while since across last year dealing with the 250s. I haven't taken too much away from it, you just kind of have to go with how the track's kind of breaking down and that stuff and it's learning when to push and when not to push and what lines to change and kind of going from swimming to jumping. In the 250s we didn't have that a lot. We were kind of skimming still for most of the main events. So yeah. It was a good track, fun.
They did something new before the races where they turned the lights off. Did you notice that?
No, I was confused when they said Pyro Show. I thought they said Pablo. I'm like, “What’s a Pablo show?” You know, I was confused with that. I didn't know what the hell Pyro show was!
