Slaw Dog
Jett Lawrence Is For Real
Breaking news, we know! But seriously, Jett just might contend for this title at the ripe age of 17. He’s now won at Fox Raceway in back-to-back races—he ended the 2020 season with a 1-2 overall over Jeremy Martin. Unlike last year, he has a full season ahead of him and his second moto was damn impressive. While he’s tied in points with Jeremy Martin (both had 1-2 moto scores Saturday), he’ll take the red plates with him to Thunder Valley.
Also, I loved this quote in the press conference about how, yeah, he actually works his ass off. Not that we didn’t know that, but loved that he said it anyway.
“I wanted to get the point out there because I am so young. I definitely feel like I’m very lucky of my gift right now and how I can ride a bike. I feel like most people see me as just a kid with talent, more like a James Stewart. He came in with heaps of talent and that stuff, but I want to show that I don’t just ride my bike and not train. I put in the work, as you guys see. I’ve got a trainer, Johnny O’Mara. J-Mart will understand also that he’s a gnarly man. He still puts a whooping on us on a mountain bike. I just want people to know that I’m a slouch. I just don’t go and ride my bike and show up to the weekend and wish for the best. I put the time in, and I make sure I do so I can get results like this on the weekend.”
What I Tell Ya About Ken?
As I mentioned in Slawdictions on Friday (read Slawdicitions, get smarter, people) I wasn’t buying this quote from Ken entering the season:
“It’s been a minute since I’ve ridden outdoors. Honestly, I’ve done this pretty much my whole life and that’s what I grew up on, but kind of felt a bit of a disconnect, to be honest. During the time last year when everybody was racing, I was forced to take it easy. It’s not like I was going out and pounding motos. I might as well would have raced. So I didn’t do that, and then we went straight back into supercross. So I just haven’t really ridden motocross for quite some time. Just been feeling a little bit of a disconnect with it. Trying to adjust to the speeds and whatnot and trying to keep my momentum up. As far as expectation for this upcoming weekend, I don’t really have any right now. To be honest, I kind of want to see where I’m at and then build each and every weekend from there on out. That’s really all I can say so far.”
And what do you know, Ken came out and damn near won the overall in his first Pro Motocross race since August 2019. Look, Ken is a contender in this series even though Saturday “surprised him”.
“I was a bit surprised. I had no real expectations this weekend,” he said in the post-race press conference. “I guess I appreciate that everybody else has such high expectations and everybody always expects me to be up front. So, I guess that’s a good thing but nobody knows what’s going on behind the scenes and how I feel about riding and things like that. Not to mention that Chase and I are on a new bike, so the testing side of things usually takes a little bit of time as well. After the first moto and getting going, and struggling a little bit but at the same time it does feel familiar. I just knew that there was going to be a learning curve to this whole thing. All I wanted to do was get better each weekend. In the end though, we put ourselves in a good position. It came back to me. It felt familiar being up there in the track. Like I said, I had some really good lines. So I’m expecting and hoping that we will just go uphill from here.”
Tomac Needs to Rebound
I have no clue what is going on with Eli Tomac, but 9-8 for ninth overall was not what I was expecting from the three-time champion. Thunder Valley will be huge for him. Even though it’s just the second round, his home race could get his confidence back.
Yamaha Needed This
When is the last time two Yamaha riders finished on the podium in the 450 Class in Pro Motocross? Try 2009 at Washougal when Josh Grant finished second and Jason Lawrence, yep, that Jason Lawrence, finished third.
I had high expectations for Aaron Plessinger entering the Pro Motocross season, but I think we’d all be lying to ourselves if we thought Dylan Ferrandis would win his first 450 race ever!!!!
I Still Don’t Know Who Will Win Either Title…
And that’s a damn good thing. Both classes are wide open, ISHO. Could J-Mart take off in the 250 Class? Will Ferrandis stay hot? What about Webb? And Roczen? And Tomac? And Barcia?
Look, it will almost 10000 percent come down to 2-3 riders after a few rounds, but let’s enjoy this for now.
Main image: Jessica Hare
Troy Dog asked on Twitter the biggest surprise of the weekend. I’m going Tomac. Ken and the Jett definitely exceeded expectations, but to see Tomac just not being Tomac took the cake for me as the WTF moment of Round 1.