Cooper Webb on Jett Lawrence: "He will be the best to ever do it, in my personal opinion, when it’s all said and done"
Jamie "Darkside" Guida is back with his Moto-X Pod Show, and this week he had Monster Energy AMA Supercross Champion Cooper Webb and Triumph's Mikkel Haarup on as guests.
Webb, currently out with a torn meniscus, had some insightful things to say, as he usually does. Especially when asked his thoughts on racing a talent like Jett Lawrence.
"I don’t want to believe what I’m seeing," said Webb with a laugh, lamenting how difficult it will be to beat Lawrence over the coming years. "My personal opinion, and I’ve got to race this guy for a long time, I just think he has it all, and he will be the best to ever do it, in my personal opinion, when it’s all said and done. To be the best in the world, you’ve got the best race the best in the world, and he certainly is, right? I've spent time around him, and I think he checks all the boxes. I think he's the most talented guy to throw a leg on the bike, possibly ever, but with that, he also works just as hard as some of the gnarliest guys there are. There's no shortcuts, he's putting in the time, he's putting in the effort. His sacrifice as far as staying away from the 21-year-old scene that most kids would be in right now and his attention to detail and just staying away from distractions and locking in and putting himself around great people…I think he's in an excellent spot with that. And then I even think from the mental side, he's pretty unbreakable. Man, he can handle a lot of pressure. He can put himself in good positions like he always does, and that's extremely hard to do. You can call it luck, you can call it talent, but to execute and to put himself in those situations anytime he needs to, it takes a lot of mental capacity. So, I think that's just kind of what you're getting is, almost like if you were to build a perfect racer, that's what you have."
Webb then went onto explain why his Pro Motocross season was getting better, but still wasn’t up to the same level as Monster Energy Supercross, where he wins races and titles. Why is it different outdoors?
“I don't know, if I'm being completely honest,” he says. “I really don't know because, you know, in the 250s, I really dominated. Even then some years on KTM, I went 1-1 at Millville [in 2019] and in ‘21 I was stacking podiums at those last three races. We made a great change for me late in that season in '21, and I was right there battling with Dylan [Ferrandis] and Eli [Tomac], the last three races. I also think, looking back, I think 2020 would have been a very, very strong year for me outdoors wise. Coming into the preseason, I really was gelling with the bike and I was right on pace with Zacho [Osborne] and Marvin [Musquin], those guys, if anything. You know, certain days, I would be a little bit better and stuff. And that was the year I had injured my back. It blew out on me at the first round, and I had to get it repaired. So, I think it just recently has been from lack of seat time and not racing. I think it's like anything when you're not out there racing, you're losing that little bit of edge and speed and experience. Like this year, I feel like I got better as the season went on, but it's small steps and I didn't even know what I wanted. You don't know what you want in the bike. I hadn't raced Hangtown or Pala or these races in so long that I don't even know what the track's gonna do. What kind of bumps or how it’s gonna develop or anything like that. I think what's killed me lately is just the lack of track time. So I've accepted that, and I still believe that had I not gotten hurt I could have been getting into maybe that top five and maybe getting closer to the front.”
Webb had routinely been a sixth-seventh guy early in this outdoor campaign. He also knows that the pace at the front was perhaps fiercer than ever.
“With that all being said too, it goes back to what I said earlier [about Jett Lawrence]. We're racing, in my opinion, some of the best outdoor riders ever right now. Eli Tomac is, in my opinion, one of the greatest motocross racers ever, period, of all time. And he's won two motos this year and it's a fight. He has to do everything, in my opinion, to get on the podium, and I certainly don't think he's riding any worse than he ever has. That's my own opinion, but yeah, I just think the level is insane and maybe even that year, like in ‘21, I like I said, there was maybe four of or five of us that were really strong. Now there's 10 of us that are legit. I'm battling Jason [Anderson], he's a multi-time outdoor winner and podium guy and, you know, [Jorge] Prado's the [FIM Motocross] World Champ and all these guys, they're so good now. I think that's a little bit of it too, right? If you look at the results, yeah, it's sevenths and eights for me, but I feel like riding wise, I'm riding better this summer than maybe I did ever before. It’s just, like I said, you got these Lawrence brothers and Chase [Sexton], and it's just insane.”
