As they did one year ago, Jett Lawrence and Haiden Deegan opened the outdoors on top of the podium at Fox Raceway’s first round of Pro Motocross 2025. It was a heroic return to 450MX competition for Lawrence, while Deegan picked up where he left off last year as the defending 250MX champion. Both riders spoke to the media following the final motos for this Debrief feature.

450MX

Image: Octopi Media.

Jett, first of all, welcome back. After undergoing your ACL surgery earlier this year, you’ve made your remarkable return – can you just walk us through that recovery process and how it feels to be back racing here today at Fox?

Yeah, it was a long recovery. I found out pain-killers suck because they can – everyone’s body kind of reacts differently to them, obviously. I don’t take any drugs or anything like that, so it’s like, when you put something like that in your body, your body kind of freaks out a bit at first. And it was going through the pain in my knees, so it was some ups and downs, but thankfully I had my brother. For the first week, I had my brother not there and sadly, he got injured then. He was there and we spent some weeks there together, thankfully, and we had each other’s company, so it made it a little bit funner. But, no, it was good. It was good mental building and just kind of sitting on the couch, it just sucks. I mean, I didn’t miss the mud races, I can tell you that, but all the other races where the tracks looked fun, I definitely wish I was out there. To go do that today, I’m super-pumped, obviously. Had lots of distractions and stuff that was out of my hands and it was just good to show up and be able to block that out and just kind of focus on business and take care of it.

You guys are are are all three coming back from injuries, so how was it to go through the process of today? You know, knowing that you go through the nerves, you got to get ready, you got to shake the bike down yesterday, feel how you do today… And then just to have that purpose of a Saturday job.

I haven’t stung it yet or whatever. I think we did enough riding hours during the week that we kind of like, I felt pretty kind of okay with my leg. Obviously, any dabbing and that stuff, you honestly, it’s kind of like PTSD. You don’t want to dab it or anything, so you’re like, kind of holding it up. But no, it’s not too bad. After a little bit, you kind of get used to it and know the feeling of everything. When you come back, like obviously the build up, you’re excited to race again, but kind of once the gate drops and you go through the moto and then, alright, like you haven’t done it in so long, but you just know what you’ve got to do in between because you’ve done it so many times. I think it’s kind of, you just go on to habits again. It’s kind of, ‘Oh, yep, go do this, go to recover for the next moto, do this, this and this’, so it’s not as challenging as you think. It’s because we go back on muscle memory, really.

How was it for you guys to build up to coming into the day and then actually getting out there and going toe-to-toe [with Eli Tomac in moto two]? Walk us through that.

Yeah, even though Eli was behind me, I could definitely hear him. I feel like the exhaust goes forwards on the bike because that thing is so loud compared to mine, but it was cool. Especially on this track, there’s only so many limited areas where you can push to try and make up a big difference. And in those areas, like the rollers going down the back, obviously Eli was taking that outside and his bike works pretty nicely on the side. And I was where I was taking the inside, obviously a safer line to protect that. And I mean, for those sections, when I could hear him on top of me, I was just going all out, everything to try and defend and stay in front. And then for the rest, it’s kind of following in that stuff, but this track is a very difficult track to try and move around because down the hills, you’re in a rut kind of thing. And the ruts are pretty long around the turn, so most of the time, it’s one-lined, fast. But it was cool. It was nice because it kind of felt like a chess game. Because he had these areas where he’d push and stuff like that, and because we both had areas where we were like, ‘Okay, we can definitely not push it here.’ Otherwise, we’re going to stack it, so it was a really cool race for me, yeah.

I want to go back to 2004. Not sure if you would remember this weekend in Hangtown, but Ricky Carmichael comes off a knee injury that cost him to miss out on defending his Supercross championship.He comes back at Hangtown, dominant 1-1 performance, and then goes on to have a perfect season that year. This kind of feels like shades of that, you know, like it’s big…

Don’t jinx me.

I’m not – the perfect season, I don’t even want to go there. But, after the race, you looked very, quite emotional, I’m sure, after everything that you’ve been through. After the race, you looked quite emotional. What do these moments mean? Like, there’s a lot of race wins that kind of happen along your career, right? But there’s a few that happen that carry a lot of weight and a lot of baggage, and to me, it looks like this might be one of those moments for you. Is that fair to say?

Yeah, for sure. You know, I think, obviously, the mental battle with the knee, it’s kind of been, I mean, the only other major injury I had was my thumb. And when you look at that kind of scarring compared to my knee, it ain’t nothing, you know. It was only six weeks with my thumb, and I could still train and stuff like that, where with the knee, you sit on the couch for most of the time. It’s hard to do anything. And it’s that mental battle, then obviously other distractions, that can take you off your game. But just with all the noise and stuff like that out of our control and stuff like that, it’s just nice to get back to the race and shut it out. And it’s kind of like all that emotion that’s been built up during trying to get better and trying to get stronger. Am I fit enough? Because you’re not with any of the competition. I’m with Hunter and we’re fit and strong, but we’re like, ‘Hey, are we that fit and strong?’ So you don’t know until you get to the race. And yeah, I think that one there was just obviously all the emotions that built up over the time of being injured and all the other this nonsense that we’re dealing with, it’s kind of, it was just really good to kind of step on their throats. Not their ones, sorry, not [Eli and Hunter].

At Anaheim Supercross, it looked like you guys were struggling with the bike. Here at Pala, we’re talking the complete opposite – the bike looked phenomenal and you guys looked phenomenal all day long. Is that a testament to you guys liking outdoors more? Do you like this track more? Is the 2025 that good? Talk us through how this happened today.

Yeah, obviously, A1 here, we kind of came in a bit behind the eight-ball, but yeah, I think outdoors, I mean, I like outdoors. I think I can speak for Hunter as well. I think we gel on outdoors a lot more just because we’ve done so much of outdoors when we were younger and there’s so many years of building on and just doing laps, so I think that just kind of helps. And we’re still working things out, just like trying to figure out what works. It’s such a different frame where we’re trying to see what, ‘Okay, if we do this, okay, the bike reacts like this. And we’re still working at it, but the bike’s obviously good enough to win today. It’s just we’re going to go back, keep trying to be better and better, but the bike’s definitely good enough to win on. I love being at Honda and we’re going to do everything we can to just make the bike perfect, even though it’s really hard to with motocross, but we’re going to – I know they’re going to do everything they can, and same as us.

It’s taken us a while to get here, and there’s a little bit break from the beginning of Supercross until now, but really, the two of you [Jett and Eli] have been battling right there together, Eli winning San Diego, you winning today. Is this what you expected, Jett, when you came into it, and Eli when he came in? And what have you been able to learn from one another, if anything, during these intense battles?

Honestly, the biggest thing I can say is, battling in Supercross is a lot more fun than outdoors because it’s not as hot. But I still think having a battle with such a big name in our sport and has accomplished and done sick things, we go back to even coming to memory when he smoked everyone and beat them by a minute or something at Hangtown, almost lapped everyone. I don’t know a lot of history about dirt bikes or like anything, so don’t give me any trivia questions, but I remember this and I remember going, that was scary at first. I’m like, ‘I’ve gotta race this guy who’s done this’. But it’s just cool, honestly, and to verse him and kind of not pick his brain through the race, but like at San Diego, got to learn a lot like in this line choices and not kind of leaving out other lines, you know, like San Diego, if we go back to Supercross, I kind of lost that night because in those switchbacks across the start straight, he started coming in where I was coming out of the turn, like he was going in the middle, but had fresh berm at the end. I never would just think that, you kind of get locked in the same area and the same lines. I think that obviously is this experience in being and knowing what to do, so it’s just really cool. I mean even on this one, I was in front. You still learn a lot of how they dissect anything, decide the track, where they’re going to make their pass and stuff like that, and kind of be able to capitalize, like, I can hear him here and hear him there. So it’s really cool to race someone like Eli and it’s really sick to race someone who knows so much.

You’ve got a reputation of being a really smart racer and only going just as fast as you need to go to win. In the media, we often kind of wonder just how fast you can go if you’re pushed, and I’m just wondering, was that you all out today?

It’s very, very rarely in, like, in a whole lap or in motos that you’re very rarely going all out, you know, because, like, especially this track, the track can only take so much traction, so much side, and I’ll feel like, before, obviously, the tire starts to roll, or just with traction, you know, and so you can only go so fast in so many areas, so I can’t really put a number of how hard I was pushing at all. Because one, I’m bad at numbers, and two, you’re so on and off on this track, you know? You push here, then you’re really light, just cruising through this area, so it’s like, it chops and changes, it’s kind of hard to say.

250MX

Image: Octopi Media.

Haiden, you had such a strong start to the season and with this being your third consecutive race here at Fox Raceway, being on your hometown turf as well. How does this season’s experience compare for the start and what adjustments did you make moving forward?

Yeah, I just kind of came in with the same goals last season, to go 1-1 at the first round and set the standard. That just kind of gave me some confidence too. That first race in general, you’re always like, kind of like, ‘Where will I stand?’ Obviously, I knew I was going to come out and be pretty good, but once you win, it kind of sets the bar. Yeah, now first round’s done.

Two very good motos, controlled them the way that you could, but after watching you ride so much lately, was that backing it down a little bit to manage the gap, not trying to blow it out 12, 15, 30 seconds? Was it just to suss out the day?

Yeah, I mean, it’s the first round. We got 22 motos. I mean, it’s cool to get a 20-second gap, but you know, save that once you have a championship wrapped up. So yeah, go out there, kind of get into a lead and just pace second place. Pretty much is what I did, rode my race, and yeah, you don’t want to override it because we got 11 rounds or whatever, so I’m going to do that.

In both motos, you didn’t seem like you were in much of a hurry to kind of force anything early, but then, I don’t know, maybe 10 or 12 minutes in in both motos, it seemed like you really kind of lit the burners and went. Was that a conscious decision? And if so, how do you, when are you making that decision and why?

Yeah, I know, like, the first round, everybody wants to be the fastest guy right off the bat, so I know it was kind of everyone going everywhere. And it’s just not a risk going down or anything. So just waited a little, let everyone get in their groove, then started making passes and then got to first. You just don’t want to rush to the beginning because you get thrown away pretty quick. Especially Fox is super-slick, so yeah, just had to wait it out.

As a guy who’s put in more laps than probably anybody in the world on this track growing up, what did you think of the new layout and the raceability of the track?

Yeah, it was good. I’m kind of pissed… They took away my jump because I want to have something to whip, and jumps are cool when we’re racing. We’re at a pro level – let’s have some sick jumps, right? So it kind of sucks they took that away. but I mean, Fox is still fun. It’s one of the gnarliest tracks on the circuit. It gets hard packed, blue grooves, so it was good though. It’s cool. I’ve obviously grown up here. I mean, I grew up 20 minutes away from here. And I’ve been riding here since I was like probably six years old, so it’s definitely cool in general to do it in front of the hometown crowd as well. I’m pretty comfortable on this track, I know it like the back of my hand – even though the track layout is different, I still I know this place right in the back of my head.

I wanted to talk a little bit about your bike set-up in the second moto. It looked on the stiffer side, it looked like you were kind of struggling to get the bike to stick to the ground, is that something you were struggling with? Something you’re going to improve on in the next round? And how much better do you think you can get the bike?

I’m like in a position where I want to go so fast, I got to have my bike stiff. And that’s what I was doing at The Farm. I was going speeds pretty fast, every time I go stiffer and stiffer, I go faster and faster, but it’s just harder to hang on. So it kind of just depends on how good shape you are to hang on to it, but I was actually thinking about going even stiffer after this race because all the gee-outs and stuff, I was like blowing my hands off. I don’t know, we’ll figure it out at the next race, the bike was a little off in that second moto, but I figured out.