What a year 2023 has been for Team Honda HRC’s Jett Lawrence. The 20-year-old has won every championship that he’s entered this season, most recently securing an inaugural SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX) at the historic Los Angeles Coliseum, where he finished with a dominant 1-1 scorecard in 450SMX. The talented Australian shares on his outstanding achievements in this latest Fast Thoughts feature.

Image: Octopi Media.

Winning this SMX title for more than just yourself…

Yeah, this sport is… on the track it’s a one-man show, but there’s so many people in the shadows that don’t get the credit. Guys doing work to the bike for Chase [Sexton] and I just to get us the best equipment and bike we can have, and that also goes into my trainer Johnny O’Mara and my dad, who are big keys in helping, also my brother Hunter [Lawrence]. Everyday we’re grinding and always trying to be better, whether it’s the bike or just me, myself. So just to get and get this done, it’s not just an awesome achievement for me, but it’s a big thank you to the people that support me and have helped me get to where I am right now.

Feeling extra pressure coming into this race with so much money on the line…

You try to come in with that same mental as last weekend, but it’s just hard. The build-up we’ve had coming into this race, social media just building it and building it with the triple points. It just puts such a heavy pressure on you. That second moto, the track was at it’s worst, we’re pushing the limit, but it’s very hard to go any faster cause everyone was doing the same thing. Especially after I did the quad and kind of showed them that, basically showed them all of my cards, everyone started doing it. So I knew I just had to be faster everywhere else on the track, get in and out of the turns as fast as I can, but it was difficult cause the traction wasn’t really there. But yeah, it was an awesome weekend, just waking up this morning and trying to focus was very hard with the pressure being there. Thankfully I was able to come out on top.

Motocross or SuperMotocross title more gratifying…

It’s definitely nice. It’s hard to take, each championship has their special moments and feelings and what you learn. This one I definitely learned, coming into the first one I thought I got curb stomped. I just had nothing for the guys, I missed the bike set up by a lot and Chase was riding really well that day. Then going into Chicago, it was a bit more outdoor style of track, but I found that it’s so limited for me. I feel like outdoors you have a lot more room to get creative, there’s a lot more things I can get creative with. So the last three rounds, everyone was doing the same stuff and it was fairly basic to go fast, so it was hard to make up that time, like Kenny said. It’s just the small things like coming out of a turn and hitting a bump and it spins out a smidge, that’s literally a couple of tenths. It might not be a massive mistake, but going down a long straight or something, it makes a big difference. So you just had to be perfect, hit your marks as best as you can and when you make a mistake, try and make that time back up, [laughs]. But this win definitely feels a little bit better than the outdoor one, just cause we got to learn how these guys race in stadiums and more so because I haven’t raced any of these guys in stadiums at all. It was a learning curve for me for next year in Supercross. I haven’t really done any supercross stuff [on the 450], it’s just been SuperMotocross stuff, it’s pretty supercrossy, but I haven’t done much supercross testing, only about two weeks. So I was excited to see how it was going to go and definitely thankful that we’re leaving on top.

Seeing Hunter crash and not able to race…

Yeah, it was a bummer thing. Just a small little mistake from Friday, it wasn’t a big thing, but a small landing wrong in the sand section ended up making it a lot worse. So it’s a bummer, I hate seeing my brother get hurt. I also hate seeing him race cause the nerves are just through the roof for me, but I feel like every time Hunter gets hurt, I always pull something out. So I’m very glad I was able to pull something out for him.

Racing in the big leagues with guys like Ken Roczen…

It’s cool! I remember being on an 85 in Germany, training with and watching Kenny when he was racing and supporting him. So it’s an awesome thing to get to race against him, yeah he’s more on the older side, but he still rides a bike unreal. He still has some of the best style in the sport I feel like and he always will go down in history for having the sick style and throwing whips, for sure. But it’s just so cool to be up with some of these legends and I’m definitely excited for next year, just to go up against [Eli] Tomac. Beating him or getting beat by him, I don’t think it’s going to change for me, it’s just one of those things where I get to race against another one of those legends, like if I’d gotten to race against Ricky Carmichael or James Stewart in their last year, I think I can speak for Coop [Webb] and Kenny, it would’ve been awesome.

Image: Octopi Media.

Things you can take away heading into Supercross 2024…

It’s definitely nice that we’ve gotten to get these rounds in and kind of get a bit of a feeling of how the bike is in supercross. I mean, I feel like for myself I’ve still got a lot of work to do, because we have to add whoops to the equation now. So it’s going to be a fun learning curve for me. I’ve had a late start to supercross, so I think even now I’m still learning and I can keep learning from these two guys up here and more people in the field. I definitely learned a lot from these three rounds, so we’ll put that into testing and try and fix the mistakes we ended up making.

Blocking out the noise on social media every week…

I just don’t go on social media a lot. I go on there, on tiktok and do kids stuff. But I’m still so young, you could writer whatever you want, even the meme pages that are roasting me, I think that’s awesome, I laugh myself most of the time. I know I say dumb stuff and that was a foot in the mouth moment for me, for sure. But I’m only 20-years-old, I’m still living and learning, but I definitely won’t be doing one of those again and I’ll definitely be looking at a maths book in the off-season, [laughs]. I got roasted all this week from my friends. I just laugh at myself, I know I’m not the best at maths, I’m probably not the brightest guy in the books, but I just know how to ride a dirt bike and twist the throttle, [laughs].

The relationship between yourself and Chase Sexton heading into the future…

Chase is such an awesome kid and is so kind-hearted, I mean we can go and battle for 35 minutes and come back and get along whether he loses or I lose. We still get along very well, we go in the truck and we barely even talk about racing, we talk about anything, so I think he’s such a good kid. Obviously, now we won’t talk as much cause we’re not on the same team, but I’m sure if we go down to the line and we see each other, we’ll say hello. I know we both have the respect for each other cause we know the work that we put into the sport. We both respect every other rider out there, cause to be up at the top level, this isn’t easy.

The history of two-wheeled racing at the Los Angeles Coliseum…

I was too young, I don’t think I was even thought of yet when they were racing. [Ken Roczen and Cooper Webb] might remember it, but it’s blank on my end. I’ve got videos and I’ve been told what’s been done here, so I know that. It’s definitely been an awesome experience being here.