Features 17 Feb 2022

Fast Thoughts: Jett Lawrence

Personable Team Honda HRC rider on lead-up to 250SX East series.

Fan favourite Jett Lawrence enters the upcoming 2022 Monster Energy Supercross 250SX East series off the back of a breakout 2021, achieving a multitude of success indoors and outdoors. The Team Honda HRC rider made a last-minute switch to compete on the eastern region following a late pre-season crash, now fighting fit and healthy he looks towards the upcoming season-opener this Saturday in Minneapolis. We get his Fast Thoughts on a variety of topics in this latest feature.

Image: Supplied.

The pre-season crash… 

The biggest thing from my mistake was I peaked way too early before even west coast started, I was getting really excited. I think my little hiccup there was really good because it kind of sent me back and whipped me into line a little bit, I was feeling almost like superman for a little bit. I’m kind of glad I had that crash, give me a good whip to get me back into line, and say ‘hey calm down, just make sure you log your laps in and do nothing crazy.’ Watching the racing itching to get out there, I just want to race so bad, it’s been forever since the last round of outdoors, so I’m just really, really excited to get back out there, get into the season and race some fast boys.

Lack of social media updates…

There’s been nothing to really to post anyways, I’m just logging laps really, training. Nothing fancy, nothing crazy. We’ve been you could say laying low, because once the season starts you got the race result posts and all that stuff, so then people are going to be sick of me soon with all the race result posts [laughs].

Seeing Hunter win a race…

Whenever Hunter [Lawrence] wins it always makes me more pumped and it makes me want to go and back it up with a win. His first win [this season] was awesome, or his first win last year, I was super pumped after how much stuff he has gone through and low points that not many people know, it’s definitely really awesome to see what he has achieved since then. That’s always the goal, see how many wins you can get, see how many wins I can get this year, but it’s definitely not going to be easy with how many fast guys there are in this coast. It’s going to be some fun racing.

Image: Supplied.

Pressure to deliver another championship…

It’s kind of good to have a bit of that pressure there to be honest, because it makes it a dangling of the carrot sort of thing. At least I’ve been in a champions situation now for most the part before I axed myself again, and outdoors I had a great battle with Coop [Justin Cooper] so I know what it’s like now. Hopefully, I can use that to my benefit with supercross and eliminate those stupid mistakes, and try not to axe myself again. I think it’s going to be good, I like to have some pressure because it makes it more exciting, puts you on that edge and see how fast your thinking is, see if you are making the right decisions. It’s going to be fun, I know Jeremy [Martin] is going to be really good this year, so I’m excited to battle with him, hopefully we can get into another battle like we last left off at Ironman, that was awesome, I can’t wait to get the season going and see how it goes really. You can’t really tell how you are going to do before the race, so you can’t really put too much pressure on yourself until you get to the first race.

Overall feeling on the bike… 

Feeling wise, pretty good. This new bike was definitely really easy on me, I can say testing didn’t take so long once we found that window the bike was brilliant. Bikes feeling great, I’m feeling pretty good, I’m just a little kid right now waiting, just really excited waiting for the season to get started.

Letting your riding do the talking… 

I’m super excited to get going racing again really, it’s surprising how much I missed it. In outdoors it’s like, ‘when is this racing going to be done’, but I just want to go racing again. It was really good to watch some of the west coast riders race, the tracks been building up, I’ve been here its been pretty gnarly. I’m excited to go racing, bang some bars with some fast dudes and have a great time.

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