It’s been a quiet start to a 450 career for Honda HRC’s Hunter Lawrence, and that’s in more ways than one. Remove his crash and then did not qualify at Anaheim 1, and he’s been not great but also not terrible, with 10-7-11-8-5 results. That quiet start to the season has been created, somewhat, by quiet starts to the races themselves. Hunter has been working on that explosive speed and intensity in the early laps. It takes trust in the motorcycle and everything else that comes with time. He was much better at Glendale and worked to his first top five.
“We're trying to make that feel normal,” he said to us post race. “We've been working really hard on explosive stuff and trying to get going in the start of the main and the heat. Those boys, they got that that first few laps where they can just send it. I’m still building up a lot of confidence on the bike and learning it and stuff like that. So, it's good. It's just been fun learning it some after some sessions.”
This is the challenge Hunter signed up for, knowing he could have taken another year in 250SX to go defend his 250SX East Championship. Probably lots of nice win and title bonuses wrapped up in there. Hunter has taken the harder route so he can get better, sooner.
“That’s what I said when we decided to move up, I feel like me as a rider developing would be more beneficial to be doing that, rather than, let's say best case scenario, I stayed to defend my title, [some of] the main events where you'd lead every lap and win were the nights you learned the least because you're out there just clicking your laps off. Felt like I would be learning more and evolving more as a rider to be battling [in 450s], whether it was eight, seventh, or fifth place, whatever it may be. So, it’s good.”
What has he learned trying to run at the sharp end of the 450 pack?
“The first few minutes you’ve just got to push like a bull,” he says with a laugh.
Along the way at Glendale, he found himself in a close pack with Dylan Ferrandis, who is an old friend and current riding partner. They’ve done some battling this year.
“We laugh about it,” Hunter says after edging Ferrandis by one position. “Obviously, he rides with us and we're good buddies and, yeah, we always laugh at each other. Like, how is it, whether we're 12th and 13th coming through or whatever, we always seem to find each other. So, that's funny. Yeah, he was there after the race and it was cool, we had a chuckle.”
Hunter has a long time to adapt to the 450 class. Take his brother Jett’s quick adaptation to the class out of the average and you’ll see more normal riders take three seasons to really get a handle on winning on a 450 in supercross. For Hunter, six races isn’t much to worry about. On the other end, his Honda HRC teammate Jo Shimoda’s start to 250SX West looks more troubling, because this is a short series where he was expected to contend for a title. Shimoda didn’t make the podium in the first four rounds, and then finally grabbed a third in Glendale.
“Just changing a little bit of stuff every time I go out racing,” Shimoda explained at the post-race press conference. “Just trying to get starts. That's like the biggest thing I'm missing on right now. And even on that main event, still got third but not the greatest starts and he kind of got gifted, you know, from that situation [Levi Kitchen slowed up in front of Jordon Smith, causing Smith to crash. Shimoda inherited third.] So, I still need to improve on that area.”
Every rider talks about starts. Jo went a little deeper by explaining that early in the race, when the track is fresh, you have to be willing to “send it” because line choice and technique aren’t as big a factor as it is when the track gets rough. Those early laps are when he needs the most work.
“When the track is rougher, I feel like it's easier for me to move around and be creative,” he says. “When it's 250 class, they fix the berms every single time before the main event. So, it's kind of like you kind of have to be “sendy” the first few laps, which I'm not really good at. But yeah, after halfway point, it's like everything comes more natural to me.”
After a strong close to his 2023 season (where he narrowly missed the 250 SMX Championship) and a high-profile switch to the Honda team that cleaned up the 250 ranks last year, there was a lot of talk of Shimoda going to a very high level this year. So far, the results haven’t quite been there. He was asked about living up to that hype this year.
“Yeah, like the hype on the social media, you know, the more into the season you get, and then you get a little more result, [it gets more] calm. Before the season starts, yeah, everyone's gonna talk about it. But yeah, the new team, new bike, I guess I didn't do a very good job being super sharp on the four rounds until now. But I know everybody is working hard behind me, at the team and the test tracks. Yeah, but it sucks when you don't have the result, but I'm sure we'll get it back.”
Jo and Hunter are still works in progress, but overall, for the team, it was a solid night.
“Tonight was a great night for the team, which is very difficult to accomplish,” said Honda HRC Team Manager Lars Lindstrom. “Having all your riders do well is pretty rare, and even though we didn’t win tonight, it was a win for the team as a whole. Getting Jo on the box where he deserves to be, having Hunter step up to the level that he and we all know he belongs, and having Jett come through the pack to get a podium and take the points lead back, was fantastic. Starts have never been more important, so we need to focus on that as much as possible for the rest of the series.”
While Lindstrom said it’s difficult for a team to get good results out of all of its riders, that is essentially what Honda HRC did do last year. They’re trying to keep that going in 2024.
