Darren Lawrence: “Hunter’s Nothing But Sheer Grit”

So, your kid, the number one kid keeps falling. I talked to Lars about it last week and he thinks it's the once a week practicing and then he’s not sharp coming into the weekend. Do you subscribe to that?
One hundred percent, those constant weeks of riding, and even on the days he would ride he wouldn’t ride much because he was trying to recover. This week we did an extra little bit of laps, an extra, let’s say, 20 minutes and like I said to him, “You made one mistake today. Last weekend you were like a frickin’ crash test dummy, you made three.” So, it's an improvement. It's not going to be like “Oh we do a few extra laps one week and all of a sudden you were great!” No, that’s just the natural progression it's going to take. This week nothing, just try to get that foot a little bit of a helper. And then the following just try to see if we can get some consistent laps. Because it's all about high speed and the feeling and the connection with that bike. He just doesn’t have it. He’s not riding, coming into the races, trying to go fast. Especially last weekend at Millville those crashes at the beginning of the day I’m like, “Bro, settle down. You’ve got to get back in tune with your bike because you’ve been so long off it.” Yeah for me it's exactly that, laps and high speed, you know?

Footpegs going to stay on? We like it?
We like it. He said it is quite weird how you use your hamstring more, it definitely does save your calf and your ankle, so it is quite interesting. Supercross it will be no good because it’ll limit your movement but at the moment it does help him. Because those first weeks when I believe he wasn’t really on speed, like Thunder Valley was a weird one where he did what he did there but he was trying to put his heel on the peg to try and save the ankle which then brought his knee forward which then put weight on the front. So then, his arms were getting tired and fatigues, his left leg was getting tired and fatigued so it was just more of like, “How can we balance the body so he doesn’t fatigue the three limbs he’s got” know what I mean?

I heard a little about the process and I heard Lars and Japan were very stressed about putting it into action, so you are to blame for that probably, but they were not stoked that there weren’t enough hours on it and enough other things to work through. But you being you, were just like, “Let’s do this.”
Yeah, it was. I think we ordered it overnight, it got to the farm by noon on Wednesday, by 2:30 we had cut it and tinked it back together me and Ty. And then I sent them a picture that night, measurements and all that and they were like, “Oh my Lord.” I was even nervous because its aluminum and I am like, “Ohhh this thing is probably going to break. This isn’t good.” So, I was pumped, Lars was like, “Dammit, Darren, you’re a pain in my ass.”

Japan was like, “Do we know how many hours?” and I was like I don’t think anyone knows how many hours this is going to take.
Because Jett was going for X-Rays at 3:00 because this was after RedBud, so literally two hours and twenty minutes it was done, he rode it and went, “Yeah that was way better” and he got in the car and went off to get X-Rays and I rang up Lars.

Okay, Hunter got another overall today, he is 12 points up, everything is coming up well for him. At one point Hunter said on my show, and I think he was serious, “I was going to be a trainer, my shoulder was messed up I was just going to be a trainer.” Great work by him and everybody.
Oh dude, the kid has grit. We know Jett’s Jett, he’s just got, and Hunter understands, he has that ability. But Hunter’s nothing but sheer grit you know. That was Loretta Lynn’s that day that his shoulder popped out and he didn’t even crash and he was just done with it you know. That kid has got grit, and that to me as a dad is probably what I am most proud of is two brothers, the grit and the determination but they’ll race each other as hard as they possibly can, I mean the result is the result, but just seeing that character of men going to battle.

I am going to push back on you a little bit, because there have been times where both of them have had to opportunity to T each other up and they didn’t take it.
I agree with you, but I was brought up in a different world and there’s some people who will kinghit you from behind and think they won the fight and that’s not who we are. We’ll stand face to face and fight clean and neat and that’s why we love Chase Sexton, that’s why we love Eli Tomac, Kenny [Roczen] sorry if I don’t mention any guys but you boys out there know who you are. You boys can race side by side clean. And if you can’t pass him clean, yes last corner if you hold him high in a berm to win a supercross or whatever that’s fine. Hold them, but this coming into a corner and putting them on the ground, that’s a pussy’s way out. You’re just putting them on the ground because you don’t want to deal with them because they could come back and pass you. For me that’s not how a man fights.

There have been times where they come in tight, but they are gentlemen about it.
For me that’s a real racer and that’s a real man. It's easy to put someone on the ground, put 'em on the ground you don’t have to deal with them again and to me that’s not a man’s way of fighting.