Houston SX II: Lawrence lives up to the hype
Jett Lawrence delivered on the hype last night for round two of the 2021 Monster Energy AMA 250 Supercross season.
The teenager turned in a performance that was reminiscent of a young James Stewart or Travis Pastrana. Despite these types of comparisons, the 17-year-old has tried his best to keep himself grounded and not allow all the noise surrounding his entrance into the professional world distract him from the job at hand.
“I have tried to keep away from all of that, as it can blow your head up pretty big when you don’t do what they want you to do’ the always excitable Jett confirmed, ‘It can mess you up mentally a bit. I’ve known that I’ve had it in me for a while, and everyone kept saying ‘When is it going to happen? Is this the night it’s all going to click together?’ Tonight was just that night,” he said, speaking at the track.
Lawrence did not have the dream start to the season that he – and a lot of others – had hoped for when the season kicked off last weekend. But what exactly changed between the races to allow Lawrence to deliver such a commanding ride for round two?
“Last Saturday the bike setting wasn’t bad, but it was overpowering the front. So we made a few changes today and we were still changing the clickers until the last practice and ended up finding the right setting. From then on I felt really good. Getting the heat race win helped mentally and I really gelled with the track and just clicked off my laps.”
Jett Lawrence
In typical fashion Lawrence threw the most unstylish of bar humps to celebrate his first heat race win and give the crowd something a little extra to smile about: “That move is called the ‘I don’t know what to do move!’ It hadn’t really clicked that I’d won the heat race until I did the jump and looked at the crowd. I didn’t think I should do a fist pump as it was just a heat race, so I just went with the bar hump for right now,” said the youngster.
Eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed some sort of exotic looking sensor system hooked up to Jett’s bike on Tuesday night. When asked about this potential traction control gadget Jett gave the corporate answer in the only way he knows how, with a laugh and a joke, “Erm, that is under the radar still, that’s some HRC stuff that we didn’t get at Geico. I’ve got no idea, you’re asking the wrong guy for the testing part, I just ride the bike. All I know is it’s got two wheels.”
This race victory has given Lawrence’s season a shot in the arm, he now finds himself well and truly in the championship fight, just four behind series leaser Christian Craig. Lawrence will be hoping that this is the first win of many for him.
“It’s definitely good to get this first win out of the way, and I think I’ve gone from sixth to third in the championship now. I think I’m four points off the lead or something. They always say the first win is the hardest one to get. Now, the rest definitely won’t be easy, but they won’t be as hard as the first one. It feels really special as A2 (the race where Lawrence crashed out of the lead last season) was 366 days ago, so it was really cool to do it around the same time as there.”
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