450 Words: Pain Management

Jett had secondary reason to wait, as he was hurting all weekend following the Hangtown crash. The gash in his leg from his footpeg was a problem, but it appears his shoulder was actually the biggest issue.

“It was a rough one last weekend, but during the week, I was on therapy, but I couldn’t see Doc G [Dr. H. Rey Gubernick] during the week because we had to do testing and work on some suspension stuff. Got here Friday, and when G landed he went straight to the hotel, did his magic, got me feeling better. Before we saw him on Friday, at press, it was looking pretty rough. But G has the magic hands. It could have been way worse and I got lucky with it.”

The results say Jett was better in the second moto, because he won it. He admitted he backed it down late in moto 1 to safe some energy. He still felt worse for moto two, but experience with managing his speed and effort, the same stuff he does while holding small, but comfortable leads throughout a moto, came into play.

“Well, the second one more so, my legs were already shot. I was just lazy riding around the outside to just bounce on the bumps a bit!” Jett explained. “I knew I had to keep Hunter close because he was right there in front of me. Chase had a charge at the start and ended up going down. I assumed I had to stay there. Midway through I was like, 'I’ll just stay here for third, but do I try to make points up?' So I decided to stay in third and just watch in case someone comes up. Then Hunter made a bit of a mistake, and he relaxed in that section and I was able to get him there. Then I was like, 'I gotta get Justin because otherwise Hunter is going to get me back,' so I sprinted. I ended up getting Justin with a few laps to go and it was just head down, keep on charging.”

Once into the lead, the adrenaline took over.

“It was like trying to mentally block it out a little bit," he said. "When I was able to get around them, especially with Hunter there I was able to just focus on hitting my marks. My legs were shot but when you’re racing for an overall win you almost become numb to it. At that point I was either going to see Jesus or see the checkered flag!”

Jett Lawrence has already won a lot of races by playing the 30+2 like a marathon and not a sprint, going full speed only if and when needed, and mitigating risk at other moments. This keeps his fresh when he needs to put in a charge. It’s a different approach than the grip-and-rip-it we’ve seen from many others, and even young protégé Chance Hymas has been trying to learn it.

“It helps when you’ve got two of the best to learn it from,” says Hymas.

This time, Jett wasn’t just managing energy and risk, he was managing the pain. How long could his bruised up leg and banged up shoulder hold on. He got everything he could out of his body, and stopped his race-losing streak at just one overall victory. Outside of Hangtown, he’s won every 450 Pro Motocross overall he’s ever attempted.

With a week more healing before High Point, another winning streak could be brewing.