In his return to competition to commence the 2024 SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX) post-season in Charlotte, defending 450SMX champion Jett Lawrence went 2-1 for the overall. See what the Team Honda HRC Progressive rider had to say following the race in this Fast Thoughts feature interview.

Image: Octopi Media.

Chasing down and learning from Eli Tomac…

I think a key thing I saw is he had the paddle, so in the sand if I could to stay close I can, or even, I could maybe gain a little bit everywhere else where it was a bit harder pack because I had the knobby tyre. I think a lot of people else had it, too. So I was just trying to make sure if I can just be close and put pressure more on the slick spots, that’d kind of help. But, I mean, I got to race him a little bit in Supercross last year, but I think, yeah, everyone’s riding style on outdoors is always different to Supercross, so I had a good two motos behind him, kind of learned some stuff. First one, not as much because he was gone, but the second, at least, I got to watch him and kind of pick up on a few things. Obviously the first one, trying to get back in my flow and obviously lost that time at the first part, but that second one, yeah, it was fun. I mean, we’re going hard, and yeah, I mean, that Yamaha is really loud and our bikes obviously quite opposite, it’s very quiet, so once I got around I still couldn’t hit my bike. It was, I think, obviously a big thing with our engine and the air intake where it’s on the Yamaha, it’s a lot quieter than that. But no, it’s cool to experience it and I hope it stays around Beast Mode because it’s always fun racing someone with such knowledge, and yeah, speed obviously too.

Going head-to-head with a great of the sport…

I think in Eli’s standpoint, I think it’s like him wanting to race Ricky Carmichael or one of those guys. You want to race the best at the time and you want to battle with him, and obviously right now Eli’s probably the biggest name and has most championships for sure right now in this class. So yeah, I got… It was an awesome race. I mean, the one cool thing is with racing against a champion is that there’s no quit. There’s always fighting until the chequered flag. So I think it’s always cool, and yeah, it’s definitely a bucket list, kind of checked off whether if I won it or not. I think it just getting to battle with him. I think it’s just a really cool thing and an honor.

Building back up in the motos…

Yeah, I like getting passed the first few laps… No, I’m trying to go, for sure. It’s just, like I said, it’s my first race back. It’s a different angle for me. I haven’t had any time off in the past where it’s the first – it’s a learning stage for me, and yeah, there’s this first few laps, so I just got to get that race pace back in me and kind of get used to sparking straight away. It’s been a while, so it’s just kind of learning that.

Shoulder pain from the outdoors prior to thumb injury…

Obviously my shoulder was bugging me quite a lot in the outdoor season, and surprisingly just needed just to rest and we didn’t really do too much. We did some therapy on it. Obviously after a week or two, it ended up being fine again, and yeah, no, I’m good.

Image: Octopi Media.

The extent of SMX going 31 rounds…

I think the 31 rounds is kind of stupid. It’s nice, obviously, when you have an injury you can come back, but I think if you look at any other top sport, they’re not doing this many races. I think, yeah, the only reason we all come back, so obviously that paycheck at the end of the day, for the bonus. So I think it wasn’t for that, a lot of guys wouldn’t show up, but I hope in the future we have less because I think it makes it more rare. You don’t see F1 or MotoGP doing 36 rounds, so I think hopefully in the future we can just have less so it makes it more of a rare thing and more on a special occasion.

Alternative options…

I think that the biggest thing you got to look at… So Chase [Sexton] has done every single round, and now we’re going to a high-speed track where they obviously want to look after our safety very well and they do, but we’re trying to set up a bike that’s supposed to handle enough G-force to get to the rhythm lanes, but then it’s got to be soft enough for the fast sections, and it can create a lot of sketchy moments of stuff being too stiff. And we’re at the end of our season. So for, people like me, Eli, guys who’ve had injuries, it’s not too bad because we’ve had that break – we’ve had time off – where Chase has still done every single round, so he’s obviously… I think anyone would be tired after doing already how many rounds. So I think it’s if we can just mainly just cut the rounds down, I think it would make it a lot safer for other riders too, because then at least for these last ones where you need the energy, you’ll have that because you’re not going through how many other rounds before. Even Supercross, there’s 17 rounds there, and it’s great and always been like that, but we don’t need 17 rounds. It makes it… I think especially once you get to a point where someone’s just already won so many times where it’s got such a points lead, it’s useless. Where if they cut it to 15, 14, it makes it a lot more exciting, so everything’s closer. You have to do things now. The 250s are exciting because you have to execute every round, where in 450s you can have a bad race and still have a chance to win it. Hopefully in the future they might cut a lot more races off just so it makes it more exciting for athletes too. And they might stick around more because they’re not just kind of wear and tear at their body throughout the whole year than have such a short off-season and then trying to get going again. The MXGP guys have a very long off-season, so they get to recoup. I think it’s more so just for us because of safety, because we’re trying to push the edge and we’re not going to back down, but at some point it’s still dangerous for us. We want to try and do this for a long time because we love it.