Jett Lawrence had a seven-second lead on Lap 11 of Moto 2 at the Spring Creek National and was on his way to the overall victory. Then the front end washed out in the soft stuff, the bike cartwheeled, and the handlebar jammed inside his boot, pinning him to the ground.
He finished fifth in that moto. Third overall. And he handed the championship red plate to his older brother.
Lawrence went 2-5 on the day — second in Moto 1, fifth in Moto 2 — good for third overall behind Hunter Lawrence, who swept both motos. Under Pro Motocross tiebreaker rules, the better Moto 2 finish breaks a points tie, meaning Jett needed only to match Hunter’s Moto 1 result in the second race to secure the overall. Instead, the crash cost him 11 points and flipped a one-point lead into a 10-point deficit with four rounds remaining.
Ten points is not insurmountable. But the math gets uncomfortable when you consider that Hunter has finished second or better in six of the first seven Nationals this season. Consistency compounds. Jett was three points back entering Southwick, grabbed the red plate there, and lost it one round later. The swing rate is accelerating at the wrong time.
The root cause, Jett said, is not speed or race-day aggression. It is the weekdays he is no longer spending on the bike.
“During the week, I’m not riding as much,” Lawrence said. “I’m trying to save my ankle as much as I can. … I’m not riding much during the week. I think after a little bit it was okay, but now it’s starting to like just when we’re changing settings. I’m just not knowing the bike as well.”
A right foot/ankle injury has reduced his midweek practice from two sessions to one. He has also stopped cycling, which cuts into his cardiovascular base. The cumulative effect, he explained, is a rider showing up to race weekends without enough reps on a machine that has been adjusted around his injury — trying to dial in setup and learn the track simultaneously during qualifying.
The crash itself had a mechanical explanation rooted in that lost seat time. Lawrence said his injured foot has forced a new riding posture, shifting his weight too far forward.
“I think [the problem is] that new style I’ve created with my foot and kind of being sometimes a little forward,” he said. “I’m like most of my weight’s there instead of just my head. It just put that little bit too much weight and it pressured the front into that soft stuff and there was enough just to kind of carve it and then flick me over.”
The impact, mercifully, caught his left foot — not the injured right. The bike still collapsed him. “I looked like I got hit by a shotgun because the bike got me and got the back of my knee and it collapsed me,” he said.
Hunter did not even realize Jett had gone down. He crossed the finish line six laps later believing his brother had already won the race.
Jett’s prescription is straightforward, if painful: ride more during the week, accept the discomfort, and return to something close to his normal schedule. He dismissed concern about the points gap, framing the remaining four rounds in binary terms.
“I’m either going to win it or I’m not,” he said. “And that’s kind of pretty simple and I’m going to try my best to win the races and get the points back.”
The data says that is a bet against a brother who has barely put a wheel wrong all season.
Sources:
- Jett Lawrence crashes multiple times in Spring Creek, believes he knows why — Yahoo Sports (Dan Beaver)