Rapid Reaction: Jett Lawrence Goes Down

Matthes: Well, the recovering from an ACL was great. He was instantly number one qualifier, like just, you know, like like nothing had changed for him. His youth helps his ability to come back from things, it's pretty amazing. Really, it's unfortunate. Like, we're so close to Christmas. So close to Anaheim. One that Honda's number one rider, the number one rider in the sport, goes down. Last year. Now, it could be a total coincidence on this, but I really felt like, and some kind of some things I heard behind the scenes that when Jett went out with the ACL last year in supercross there was one man who sort of stepped up his game, and that's Cooper Webb. And he told a few people you know, like, Cooper's like, "I can beat everybody, but I don't have Jett's speed and talent. I can beat everybody else." And he's done it, right? Don't think he's intimidated by anybody else. So, when Jett goes out like this, I think of someone like Cooper Webb, and again, this is just me speculating, but in my mind, I think that Coop thinks, "Man, Jett's pretty special and he's pretty talented. I don't know what I got for him." But then as we saw with the ACL [injury to Jett], he [Webb] stepped it up. And again he [Webb] always gets better as the season goes east, so it's a little bit of a coincidence there. But anyways, yeah, this field's wide open now. JT, a guy like Cooper Webb I think amongst others is like now rubbing his hands together.

Thomas: Yeah. So a few things there. Yes, I do believe that that in Cooper Webb's heart and he's said as much that he believes he can figure out a way to beat the other guys. Right? Whether it's through consistency, whether it's through mental kind of racecraft, he can kind of just solve the equation to these other guys somehow, some way. Not all the time. But I think he believes he can. Jett, I think, is the one where he's just like, "I'm not fast enough and he doesn't really succumb to pressure. I don't know what to do with that." I think he understands the math is simply different when Jett's not in there. And that's, you know, it's probably the ultimate compliment to Jett coming from Cooper. I think about a guy like Chase Sexton, he probably would shoulder shrug and say, yeah, it doesn't really matter. I don't believe that though. Yeah, I don't believe that. I think deep down, Chase knows that his odds of winning go up. Like whether he would ever admit that is probably a completely different topic.

Matthes: I agree with you totally. His odds go up, of course, but I think Chase believes, and we've seen it, that he can match Jett on speed.

Thomas: Chase would be like, "No, no, it doesn't change anything. It doesn't matter." In the end, who cares? I just think it's interesting, the psychology part of it. Right. It is pretty interesting to me? And I'm going to throw this out there and it's almost too soon to say this, and I don't mean it. Like if you wanted to twist my words and make this sound horrible, then so be it. And that's a horrible thing to do. But on in some way, this makes the championship better.

Matthes: Well, no, of course it does.

Thomas: More it's everybody on equal footing. The only reason I hesitate to say that is because I feel like if Jett's family heard that, they'd be like, "That's terrible." And I don't mean it that way. It's almost like I'm complimenting Jett to say that. Yeah, like I think Jett is the odds on favorite easily going in and now it's wide open.

Matthes: That talus bone has caused riders issues in the past. I think Shorty [Andrew Short] did it. There's been a few guys that have been like, dude, it it doesn't feel good.

Thomas: I don't mean it's not going to be problematic. I just mean you look at Jett's freakish ability. He's he's really young, the modern medicine that they have now at their disposal, here's no limit to the resources they have to throw at this thing. I don't think it's going to be something that's a hindrance, especially given the time frame, because he's six months out from racing. I just can't imagine that that that's going to matter too much. But yeah, it's I think the immediate reaction to the name of this podcast is everybody's like, that's terrible. But once you get past like injuries happen in the sport, he's going to be fine. And he's he still has a great life and all these great things going on in his life for the championship on a competitive level. 

Matthes: We mentioned Jett's inability to stay healthy now. I was one of those guys that was like, "Hey man, calm down on the 72 [career supercross wins talk]. Stop it." Jett and and Dazzy's pushback was like, well, shouldn't you aim high? Okay, I get all that. But with these two seasons now, assuming he doesn't come back from the race this year, he got one win last year. 

Thomas: I think it's done. 

Matthes: Yeah. That first year, I'm like, wait, maybe it's not that dumb of a of a thing to talk about 72 here. The kid is that damn good. But now with now, you're missing pretty much two seasons, assuming he doesn't come back this year, maybe 72 is a stretch.

Thomas: Yeah. It's one of those things where on a purely like a binary math guy. If you're just some sort of accounting nerd and you're like, well, I can’t make a pathway to get there. Like I can tell you exactly how. And motorcycles, sometimes there's like a year where the motorcycle is not so great. Or maybe they have an off year. If that happens once then the math doesn't work anymore..

Matthes: In 250s, it was just a collarbone early in his second year or whatever. And now we're seeing the thumb, we got an ACL, we got this talus bone. By all accounts, from the people I talked to, this wasn't a big one. It was a pretty small obstacle. But is there anything to that in your eyes, like about the kid's riding style? And I don't think there is, but I'm asking you, is there anything to why he gets hurt?

Thomas: No, I don't think so, because I think they have been kind of freak accidents. The ACL was not a mistake on his part, right? You know, like it was a first turn chaos casualty. And he put his foot down in the wrong manner which everybody that's raced has put their foot down a million times. It's just one of those things where racing has a mind of its own.

So, yeah, I would say the only thing I look at from this is, you know, the edge of being the best guy in the world are small and the windows are very finite. Cumulative injuries like this, where you miss three months and then you miss another eight weeks, then you miss another three, I wonder if that's going to have an effect of like where his edge is over everybody if that starts to take a cumulative toll. Can he come back every single time and just be like, nope, I'm still the best guy by a lot? Or is someone going to take advantage of all of this missed time? And I don't know if that's Deegan, or Sexton, I don't have a guy to really say who is going to do it. But what I do know is injuries, a bunch in a row, typically show up somewhere. So far, he's been able to just erase whatever time off that he's had. I don't know that you can do that forever. Like you can't just miss half a season year after year after year and still just have this big edge over everyone. Can he remain head and shoulders, the best guy in the world missing this much time?

Matthes: Yeah. Stacking blocks. Right. Stacking blocks.

Thomas: That's why Dunge was so hard to beat. Yeah, like you couldn't point to anything that Dungey did and say, "Well, he just he's just way better in the whoops than everybody. He's always the fastest qualifier. He holeshots everything." It was it was a body of work. And that body of work was built upon seven years or eight years of no injuries. And that's it's really hard to fight back against. And that's it's going the opposite way for Jett right now.

Matthes: Absolutely. You're right. In the press release, Brandon Wilson, the boss of Honda Racing, he mentioned Joe Shimoda. They have four riders and two of them are out with serious injuries. Brutal for a team that was rolling.

Thomas: I know you love this analogy: in a football season you can be really fortunate and the ball bounces your way and you go nine and seven versus six and ten, but the margins were so extremely tight. Yeah, well, then the next year it bounces the other way.

Matthes: By the way, I shot Andrew Short a text. He said, yes, he broke that bone once year in San Diego. He said: “I remember hurting so bad, the team was happy to win with Davi Millsaps and I was so pissed. Going to be a difficult injury for Jett and one, in my opinion, not to rush. Similar to navicular in your wrist.” Awful. JT and I, although we are not medical doctors, it says minimum three months. Neither one of us expect to see him in supercross, even though, you know, it is a five month long season. Yeah, just just some points. You brought that up, JT. It's a good point, but I don't see that being enough of a draw to get the kid to to come back. So most likely we'll see him outdoors, I would think.

Thomas: Yeah, I agree.

Matthes: Okay, one more question for you. Does it change anything for Deegs?

Thomas: No, but I did have a few DMs about that. I just the only thing I would say, and if he doesn't race any 450 supercross, it's going to make the opener of pro motocross that more fascinating. But I do believe that if in the back of their mind that this is Team Deegan, the back of their mind, they were thinking like maybe we could do like something like one in like late March and East Coast round just to try it. I would say that not having Jett there makes it more likely than not. It just moves it up on the board a little bit. It's just one less thing they have to avoid as far as like narrative and hype and all that stuff. Yeah, I don't know. Interesting.

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