With eight wins to his credit in the 2024 Monster Energy Supercross season and a lead of 20 points, there should not have been much concern for Jett Lawrence on a sunny Saturday morning in Salt Lake City — but as the day went on, nerves began to jangle slightly, clouds rolled in, and a 30-minute hold for lightning heightened his anxiety.
Lawrence entered the race with a massive points lead, but he had not yet clinched the title. If Lawrence finished last, Cooper Webb could steal the title with a win or second-place finish.
In a Supercross race, anything can happen. Last year, Eli Tomac only needed to ride out the final two races and become the 2023 Supercross champion. With two rounds remaining, Tomac landed hard in Denver and ruptured his Achilles tendon.
The weather delay gave Lawrence more time to consider what could go wrong.
After the race, Lawrence described his feelings while sitting in the hauler: “I was losing it in the truck because all I wanted to do and the calmest I had been all day was when I was on my bike, so all I wanted to do was get to the Main and get the gate drop done, so that was killing me.”
Athletes make their luck, both good and bad.
“The whole time in my head, it was like ‘don’t mess up, don’t mess up, don’t mess up,’ ” Lawrence said in the post-race news conference. “Any bit of sketchiness, we would just back down. Mom would have been happy with that. Any kind of risk that could have been taken, we just took it out.”
But Lawrence had to find the edge first, and there was a moment in the race that could have opened a crack in the door that Webb may have walked through.
Early in the Feature, conflict developed between Hunter Lawrence and Jason Anderson. Hunter got the worst of the exchange, and soon after he hit the ground, Jett defended his brother’s honor. Jett rode Anderson wide in a corner, getting ‘sketchy’ in the process.
In that moment, Lawrence could have reflected on some of the pivotal moments of the 2024 season.
As dominant as he was in 2024 Supercross, Lawrence could have been better.
After winning the season opener, he struggled and failed to podium in the next three starts, with a worst finish of ninth on a sloppy track in San Francisco.
“Obviously, San Fran wasn’t the best for me,” Lawrence said. “I thought I was a mud guy, but apparently, I wasn’t.
“At San Diego I was dealing with my thumb injury; sprained it pretty bad and having them puffed up like balloons Saturday morning.
"[...] One that comes to mind was Anaheim 2, in the opening ceremony getting the whole stadium booing me. At the time, I thought it was great because people are going to come and watch if they want to see me win or see me lose, so it was kind of a cool thing. Ricky [Carmichael] told me, James [Stewart] told me they all got booed at one time.”
And there was a time late in the season when Lawrence squandered a 21-point lead. After scoring three consecutive wins at Daytona, Birmingham and Indianapolis, he lost points to Webb in the next three races and allowed his challenger to tie him in the standings.
From Low to High
The low point might have come at Nashville. It was a high point instead.
“I had a few bad runs in some rounds and lost a 21-point lead, so then we’re tied,” Lawrence said. “I feel that was a good turning point to rebound. I felt good all that day, so I was pumped about that.”
Beginning in Music City, Lawrence accumulated another three-race winning streak to tie his highwater mark from earlier in the year.
His seventh-place finish in Salt Lake City was his third-worst result of the year, but it didn’t matter for the championship. Lawrence now has seven consecutive SuperMotocross titles when his 250 exploits are included.
In less than two weeks, Lawrence will be back in action, this time in the Pro Motocross outdoor season, where he was perfect in 2023.
Lawrence’s 11 overall wins in outdoors last year, SuperMotocross World Championship title, and eight Supercross victories as a rookie are all at or near the top of the record book.
How does one stay motivated after so much success? Lawrence knows that question must be answered as he enters his second season in each series.
“It’s hard when you get to a stage where you’re winning everything,” Lawrence said. “You get to a slump ... You have to get that mental frame back to where it’s kind of humbling. There are still people coming.
“Ricky did it twice, so we might as well go for another [perfect] season.”
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