While the results and even the title picture seems procedural in the AMA Pro Motocross Championship this summer, the races have had a tint of unpredictability that goes beyond the numbers. The Ironman National took it to another level, as while Haiden Deegan restored order to the 250 class with a 1-1, Jett Lawrence and Chase Sexton had wild days that won’t soon be forgotten.
It started with Lawrence, literally, when he appeared to hit the gate after someone else flinched (Jeremy Hand nearly went early, and Justin Barcia got caught up by that, also). Jett’s usual holeshot prowess was instead reduced to a terrible start, he around 38th as the riders took off down the start straight. He moved to mid pack as the riders snaked through the first turn, and what followed was an incredible charge by the dominant man of 450 motocross, from 23rd to third. At one point the moto win even seemed possible, but Sexton (more on his day later) held strong under fire to keep Jett Lawrence at bay, and then eventually steal the moto win from Hunter Lawrence. Still, bad-start-to-third wasn’t a bad result for Jett.
Well, then it got worse. After the moto Jett Lawrence was assessed a one-lap penalty by the AMA, citing this rule:
Defined Start Violations and Penalty Options
“Jumping or fouling the gate may result in a penalty of one lap or disqualification.”
The one-lap penalty dropped him from third to 17th. Ouch. Of course, the obvious question is how could Jett be penalized when his early jump clearly didn’t result in an advantage? He started, well, nearly last. The AMA, led by Racing Director Mike Pelletier, explained this was because at the moment the gate first dropped, Lawrence was a wheel ahead of the field. Yes, he lost momentum and was immediately passed by nearly everyone, but in that freeze-frame moment of the gate hitting the ground, he was the lead rider. That’s the difference between Jett’s situation and, for example, Sexton when he got stuck in the gate at the Detroit Supercross.
Thus, the penalty. Steve Matthes talked to Lawrence’s Honda HRC Team Manager Lars Lindstrom after the race.
“I think that the spirit of the rule is to keep someone from trying to get an advantage like [Mike] Alessi back in the day, you know, like, amateur stuff, especially, jump the gate and then just go,” explained Lars, talking about the technique of a rider simply counting to a number and dumping the clutch in hopes of guessing the timing right. “So, the spirit of the rule is to keep someone from gaining an advantage or on purpose jumping the gate and gain an advantage. I mean, obviously anyone can see, it was an accident. He obviously didn't get a great start. He's one of the best starters ever, so it wasn't like he did it on purpose to try to gain an advantage, which I think is why the spirit of the rule is there. It pisses me off that that the penalty would be that big for something like that. So, I fought really hard to try to convey that to Mike.”
In this case, though, the AMA considered this a black-and-white rule call. Jett was ahead when the gate dropped, case closed, no other evidence mattered.
“I mean he [Pelletier] understood what I'm talking about, but then there's also the other side of it where, where a lot of people have criticized the AMA before for not, you know, sticking to their rules and, and being gray and all these things,” Lindstrom said. “So in that respect I want to agree with Mike and say, ‘Hey if the rule says this, it's black and white.’ And I guess it kind of is.”
Yes, the AMA stuck to its guns on the rule call, but Lindstrom did point out other areas where discretion is applied, and he’s not happy about those.
“I guess if you want to stick to that rule book, then you have the whole going off the course thing…don't even get me started on that,” said Lindstrom. “I mean there's some of the riders out there are going off [the track] all the time. Nothing happens and you can bring the video and they're like, ‘Well, they didn't really get any time.’ So that’s very discretionary. That one really gets me fired up and I kind of let them have it about that.”
![Jett Lawrence]()
Jett Lawrence Align Media ![Hunter Lawrence]()
Hunter Lawrence Align Media
In the end, Jett’s penalty prevented him from taking a 3-1 overall win and instead resulted in a 17-1 for sixth. The beneficiary, actually, was teammate and brother Hunter Lawrence who finally captured a 450 overall win with a 2-2.
“There was a lot of wild stuff that went on today, which worked out in my favor—what happened to Jett in the first moto with being penalized a lap, and then I’m not sure what happened with Chase in the second moto,” said Hunter. “It was a wild day in that aspect, but I’m happy to be there and able to capitalize on it. It was hot, with no breeze—a really tough, physically demanding day.”
Jett had other issues to deal with, including a stomach issue he also mentioned on The Weege Show.
“Ups and downs today,” said Jett in a Honda HRC Progressive PR. “I tried some new things with my stomach because I’ve been struggling to digest food between motos, and I think the tablets I took kept digesting everything so quickly that by halfway, I had no energy—bit of a bummer there. Obviously, there was the incident in the first moto, which in my mind is kind of silly because I feel like AMA has double standards; we’ve got guys cutting the track and they don’t do anything. I guess this is what we have to deal with, but they might need to get better at realizing who they need to penalize. I came back and won the second moto, so we’ll leave with that.”
Jett, by the way, lost 15 championship points due to this penalty. The only reason this isn’t an earth-shattering deal is because he held a big points lead coming into the race and could still wrap up the title this weekend at Unadilla if he can gain three more points on Hunter. If this was a nail-biting title chase, the penalty could have been a nail in the coffin.
As for Sexton, he briefly held the overall win in his hands once he got to the back of Hunter and then looked to be in position to cruise it home when Hunter went off the track. Then Sexton crashed spectacularly moments later. We’re still waiting for word on what caused the crash, as, not surprisingly, Sexton was gone from the race track almost immediately and not available for comment. Either Sexton made a mistake on the jump, and the crash caused his front brake to lock, or his brake was already locked on the jump, which caused the crash in the first place. Sexton’s front wheel wasn’t spinning in the air. Was that because he was riding the brakes to the very last second and erred, or did the brake, ahem, break at the exact wrong time? Generally, it would be hard to believe a rider of Sexton’s caliber would suddenly miscalculate a single jump so badly, but nothing official is yet known.
As of now we just have this info from the Red Bull KTM Team Manager Ian Harrison.
“Chase rode an incredible first moto that was nice to watch as a fan – just amazing – and he managed to ride a very calculated race to take the win. Second race, he lost control over the jump – I did not see it exactly – but afterwards I could see that he couldn't get going as the front brake was jammed on. It was unclear at that time when it'd happened, but judging from when we got to the bike, it looks to be that the brake packed full of mud, and that was the after-effect of the crash. Leading up to the crash, we're still unclear of exactly what happened, but it does look like we could be dealing with debris in the brakes from the track, and if that’s the case, we need to come up with a solution on how to prevent this in the future."
“I have hundreds of questions,” said Harrison to Matthes. “Once the bike is out of impound, we can have a look and see. Of course I didn’t talk to Chase right now, he’s frustrated and rightfully so. But I don’t think this was an error from a mechanical, it could be a rock, it could be mud. We’ll check it out and go from there.”
