After his win on home turf in Australia at the AUS-X Open, Jett Lawrence joined Steve Matthes to recap the day. Lawrence was much better than he was at the Paris SX but even with the win, the Honda HRC Progressive rider knows there is still work to do to continue to get better. There is less than 50 days until the 2026 Anaheim 1 SX, so Jett and his brother Hunter will be ramping up their boot camps once back in the United States of America.
Racer X: All right. Jett Lawrence, AUS-X Open champion. First of all, I want to say that that rhythm along the start, did you try to do five or you just went long on the four?
Jett Lawrence: I just went long on the four by accident. [Laughs] Dude, that up ramp at first was a booter! It was steep. It sent me so much more than I thought.
I was like, “Did this guy just try to do five? No, okay!”
I'll get dressed again and if it's still there, I'll try. I'll get him to re-lip it.
Look, you never want to say it's easy because nothing's easy. But tonight, was just so much more calm for you than Paris or last year here, right? Good starts. Mossy [Matt Moss] was on it but it was a nice easy night for you.
Yeah. Honestly, you'd say almost the riding side of the thing was a boring night. But honestly, you can't complain because you don't get them very often. So, the riding side of things were good but like I think I said it yesterday, when we were on the podcast, they were kind of saying like, as long as I get good starts, execute my laps, and I think if I have fun, I'll ride good. And I was having fun today on the track. The track layout was fun. I had a good flow and just enjoyed my time while I was out there, you know? And I think it created more of a cool, fun memory for me maybe than on the outside looked like I was just going through the motions. But it was fun for me.
And I'm guessing that rhythm I just talked about 3-4-1 was quicker? Did you guys time it?
I don't know, even if it wasn't, it still felt cool. [Laughs] It was fun basically doing it in two jumps, you know. So, it was it was all time. It was still fun.
![]()
AUS-X Open ![]()
AUS-X Open
Yeah. Crowd was really cool too. This is my first time here. It felt like American supercross: program, crowd. Track was legit, although slippery, but track was legit, right? I mean, this is pretty close to what you get in America?
Yeah, it's very similar. The track guys do really well. I think it's like a little smaller, that's why I think I OJ'ed a lot of stuff. I think they're like just a foot or so shorter, smaller, than in America. But then again, it's been a while since I've been at the pro SX kind of in the stadium. So, I think compared to our ones at the farm [training facility], it's a lot shorter. So, no, but it's the crowd's always great here. I mean, we had 10,000 less than last year, and it was still stupidly loud. So, it was cool. You know, I've said this multiple times already that this will be a cool memory. I think every time you look back, it'll be easy to remember the feeling that you got. And just the moments we've had here. Just on the bike, off the bike and it was a fun weekend. A fun, fun trip back.
Look, you get paid a lot of money to be here, which is awesome. But talking to Jacob [Hayes, agent], talking to your dad, and Lars, you guys had a shit ton of obligations. Did it feel like a lot? I mean, you did our stupid show, and then you had a Honda dinner. But was it a lot?
Yeah, Adam [Bailey, promoter], he got his money worth, for sure! We're joking about that. [Laughs] But no, it was a lot. But, I mean, like, again, the signing things, you know, you got to think as a kid that doesn't get to see it's this one time of the year that they get to see us, you know, and their reaction, that of them seeing us for the first time or seeing us after how long from previous year is so awesome to see the reaction and the joy in their eyes, their smile. Even when they're shy, you still see the happiness in their face in a bit. And it's hard. You don't get that every day. And it's really cool. I think that's why even though we could be very, kind of, entitled and be like, "I'm so over this, it's taking forever, I'd rather be relaxing." But then again, it's like I remember being that kid of going, "Oh, I'd love to see the person," let alone get a signature, you know. And I think that's what kind of makes me sit out there and do those hour signings and still be happy through the whole thing, because I am genuinely happy to meet new fans, new faces and see all the different characters from the young kids.
And then sometimes, like, not even fault of your own but I'm sure you've blown off people or couldn't sign everything or couldn't do anything, so in a race like this, in a relaxed atmosphere, let's try to get everything we can. You know, in America, like you only have so much time.
Yeah. And like this one, obviously we don't take it serious, you know, so we kind of can do a little bit more of that and even, like, sometimes we do have to kind of like say no to kids because we got to go do something, sadly. Like, I got to go ride my bike. I'm late already! But in America, you know, we take a lot more time and focus into what we're doing. So, it's like a little less time signing. You know, we'd love to be there, but, like, we're more focused on our result on that day, so it's a little harder. But with this event, yeah, it's a lot easier to get a lot more signing in.
So, back to America, you're an incredible rider, you're really good on a dirt bike. Do you have things, though where you're like, “I want to work on this.” Like, obviously the bike. Obviously, we're always trying to get the bike better, but you yourself, like, your only weakness that I can think of is you take a little while to get going sometimes. Just you just want to get settled in before you go into warp speed. But I don't even know if that's a weakness. That's more just, “I know I can win this if I'm cautious.” But do you have anything you want to work on before Anaheim 1?
Honestly, it's a pretty simple thing of just doing more laps. You know, when you don't know what you're working on, but your body naturally fixes things for me. The more laps you do, you will start to naturally go off of instinct and just the more time and I think getting that will just be spending more time doing laps. You know, the more laps you do, the more time you get with the bike. You can look at things and go look at the texture of the dirt and go, "Okay, it's going to be like this. I can do this position. I can give it this much." And this makes it almost a little easier to ride, I would say. So, I think for me, just more track time. And then obviously I think we still got some work to do on the suspension a bit.
That's a never-ending thing.
Yeah. Which, I mean, I think I was talking to you, either you or someone else yesterday about, like, I think that's a never-ending story. You know, you're always trying to tweak your suspension to make it better, but you're never going to have it perfect.
The one thing that drove me crazy when I was a mechanic was, we would go to the Yamaha test track, Chad [Reed], [David] Vuillemin, [Tim] Ferry, and they would ride the same six-inch groove around the track that they had down pack. They could ride this track with their eyes closed and it was a six-inch groove, you know, the perfect lines. And I'd always be like, "Hey man, like, you guys should go inside there and single double instead of triple. And you should try to ride a whole lap doing I don't know." Do you do that or do you guys fall into that trap that I used to shake my head at?
So, the biggest thing, I do the same because of one thing. So, you're so used to that line, so you know the bike, what it does in that line and when you change something different on suspension, you want to feel the difference. And if you take a different line, it brings into, "Oh I haven't been there. Was it that dirt just of the loose stuff or was it the bike?" So, you generally take the exact same lines, just so you know because you can feel the reaction of like, "Hey, I did the exact same thing, but that kind of sent me a little more, like the rear kind of kicked back a bit more, or like it kind of had a felt it hit a hard spot or kind of went through and then just kind of didn't come back." And you get you get a better feeling of it because you know what the bike does. You're so used to that that rhythm, that line, with your legs, your arms, stuff like that. So, it's more, I think it's better when you keep on the same line. Then, I think at the end of the day, you go, "All right, let's test it when I'm not used to a section." You do different lines [than] you might race. You cut down here, cut down there to really test, at the end of the day. You go, "Yeah, this is better" because it might be great on that line. Then try and race it because we raced here and then we practice and it's like, "Oh, it doesn't work."
