First, let’s get this part out of the way. The Jett versus Deegs battle is not just a media creation. Haiden Deegan has done as much as anyone to make this a thing. Deegans know hype, and they didn’t waste a chance to create as much as possible for this AMA Pro Motocross Championship opener on a 450. It was Haiden who talked about Jett in a Dirt Shark video last week. It was Haiden who made an Instagram reel using music from Jett’s girlfriend. It was Haiden who wore a shirt on Friday that featured, among other things, a tombstone drawing that said "RIP Jett." And "I heart Dylan Conrique" (Jett’s girlfriend). And some Conrique song titles. And the phrase “prone to foot and ankle injuries.” Haiden is leaning in as far as those Olympic ski jumpers.
Or, if you want to find a logical way to buy into this, it’s the 250 motocross champ against the 450 motocross champ.
So, when the two actually found each other on the race track on Saturday in moto one, everyone, including Haiden, knew what it meant. Er, well, almost everyone. Jett himself isn’t diving into any of it. Here’s Jett’s response when asked about this little battle.
I'm only going to ask, because you guys were actually battling: how was it battling Haiden Deegan? What did you learn from him? We saw a couple passes back and forth. What was it like learning another rider and another person on the track that you're not really familiar with before?
Jett Lawrence: Not too much. I mean, I was kind of trying to figure out my own stuff. I was dealing with trying to get into a flow, so I was more focused on myself, and it was just kind of another rider out there. It wasn't, “Oh, it's a different person, I’ve got to figure it out.” I was just trying to figure my stuff out first and then put that into display and try and link laps together.
You can take the lack of interest in the Deegan battle as just gamesmanship, but it’s probably just truth: it’s clear that Jett’s ankle is definitely still an issue, and he was learning to ride with it on that track, and improving, almost every lap. He was much worse in the first qualifier than he had been in any race ever here, he was better in the second qualifier, better again in moto one, and then his best was third in moto two.
So, Jett’s take is that he was way more worried about trying to ride with his injured foot than what he could take from the 250 Champ. In the first moto, Haiden and Jett did suffer bad starts, they came through the pack together, and Haiden passed Jett. Soon after Jett passed him back and took off, built a small gap and they passed more riders, and the gap between them stayed the same from there. More of the same in moto two, where they again suffered bad starts and again came through together, but this time Deegan couldn’t get close enough to show Lawrence a wheel. Final score: Lawrence went 4-3, Deegan went 5-4.
Does it mean anything? Not really. Hey, it’s good to see it actually develop on the track and see them pass each other. That’s cool and it was fun to watch. It’s pretty obvious, though, that you’re not seeing the full form of either rider, so you can’t take too much from it. It’s pretty obvious Lawrence is not 100 percent. Maybe even worse than expected. We had heard rumblings from the test track that Jett looked like Jett, but a super rough and choppy Fox Raceway is a different animal. He was not the same and had to spend the day adapting and riding around the injury. Worse, you know he was in major pain when he woke up Sunday morning. So, how much damage does he do with each moto, and how quickly can he improve by next Saturday? This was as far away from Jett as we’ve ever seen Jett be. He still pulled off third overall. How quickly can he get better?
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Deegan of course will improve too since this is his first 450 Pro Motocross race. Had he not worn the shirt and built this up, this would look completely fine. Okay, it’s not Jett going 1-1 in his 450 debut three years ago but coming from bad starts to just off the podium in his debut is fine for a debut. You can always tell how badly Haiden wants it, and this day was no exception, as he was clearly riding that YZ450F hard. On a 450, that effort often just becomes inefficiency, and he wasn’t smooth. Also, you could hear Haiden revving his 450 in a similar fashion to his trademark 250 style. In the 250 class, you could hear Haiden all the way around the track. He literally sounded different than the other riders. It was the same with the 450, but that’s not a good thing here. Running gears and less revs helps relax the bike and gets it to handle better. He commented to Vital MX’s Lewis Phillips after that race that he’s going to have to adapt to that and run taller gears to free up the bike.
Standard stuff when making the transition. So, how do you judge Deegan’s debut? Against the bluster, it wasn’t successful, because this was definitely not RIP Jett. Against more reasonable standards, it was good. He didn’t beat the best in the 450 class, but 5-4 with many things to learn and much improvement to make is good. That’s always been the Deegan dichotomy. Do you judge him only on results and racing or do you judge him based on his own words? The answer to that dictates if you consider this a success or a failure.
