Yesterday news broke that Jett Lawrence broke his foot. The expected recovery is three months, ending any chance of him competing for the title in Monster Energy AMA Supercross. Steve Matthes and Jason Thomas jumped on a call real quick as one of Matthes’ Renthal Reaction podcasts to discuss. Here’s some of the things they had to say.
Matthes: What’s up JT?
Thomas: Well, these are not the most fun to talk about. You’re talking about one of the biggest stars in the sport, and it seems like far too often as of late, this has been a Jett Lawrence topic. Does it feel that way to you?
Matthes: Yeah. Well, he made a comment at the media days, and maybe he did it to you. too, about I’ve never done a [full] 450 season, and I’d really like to do a [full] 450 season. Like he literally made that comment. And dude, this ain’t just a broken hand. You know, this is the talus bone in the foot. Not good. Minimum three months is what the press release says. I would be surprised to see him before outdoors.
Thomas: Me, too. I can’t find a lot of reason for him to rush back halfway through supercross, other than if he’s considering, like the total series points for seating, but it’s a lot of prep to do to get ready to race supercross and then switch over to motocross. Or he could be really patient and come into the first round of outdoors over almost over prepared, where it seems like he’s been rushing back every time. Like that’s everybody’s been like, oh my gosh, how is he this good, this fast? Yeah, this would kind of be the opposite where he would really be able to be patient with it. So yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how they approach that because they don’t they don’t always approach things the way that you or I would like. They have very unique viewpoints on things.
Matthes: Well, the recovering from an ACL was great. He was instantly number one qualifier, like just, you know, like like nothing had changed for him. His youth helps his ability to come back from things, it’s pretty amazing. Really, it’s unfortunate. Like, we’re so close to Christmas. So close to Anaheim. One that Honda’s number one rider, the number one rider in the sport, goes down. Last year. Now, it could be a total coincidence on this, but I really felt like, and some kind of some things I heard behind the scenes that when jet went out with the ACL last year in supercross there was one man who sort of stepped up his game, and that’s Cooper Webb. And he told a few people you know, like, Cooper’s like, I can beat everybody, but I don’t have Jett’s speed and talent. I can beat everybody else. And he’s done it right? Don’t think he’s intimidated by anybody else. So when Jett goes out like this, I think of someone like Cooper Webb, and again, this is just me speculating, but in my mind, I think that Coop thinks, “Man, Jett’s pretty special and he’s pretty talented. I don’t know what I got for him.” But then as we saw with the ACL, he stepped it up. And again he always gets better as the season goes east, so it’s a little bit of a coincidence there. But anyways yeah this field’s wide open now. JT, a guy like Cooper Webb I think amongst others is like now rubbing his hands together.