Defending 450MX champion Jett Lawrence made his long-awaited return to racing at the opening round of the 2026 Pro Motocross Championship, with the Honda HRC Progressive rider charging to P3 overall at Fox Raceway following his injury layoff. In this Debrief feature, Lawrence reflects on his comeback weekend.

Image: Octopi Media.

The comeback result

I think I’m always going to be harder on myself because the end goal is always to want to win. But considering how my foot is and coming back after not riding and racing for so long – it feels like it’s been years – it was okay. We had to blow a lot of cobwebs off and just get back into racing again, dealing with a few little hiccups and some nerves that you don’t normally think about. Even little bike setup things – I had my throttle cable too tight, which was causing arm pump. Just small things like that where I wasn’t really thinking because I was so focused on making sure my foot was good. But it was good to be back. It’s that adrenaline rush again and the butterflies you get right before the gate drops. We need to work on the starts because mine sucked, so hopefully we can improve that this week. But overall, it was good to be back.

The injury after race day

The ankle feels like shit right now, [laughs]. But besides that the rest of the body’s not too bad. We’re going to go back, rest up and recover, and be at Dr. G’s obviously, with him looking after me and helping get this ready for next weekend. When I don’t ride too much it actually starts to feel a little bit better. The last day we rode was Tuesday and on press day I had a good walk going and things like that. But once I’m back on the bike it kind of drops it back again because it gets stiff afterwards. So yeah, we’re just going to go back, recoup, get it feeling good again, then head to Hangtown and hopefully get some better starts to make my life easier.

Image: Octopi Media.

The reason for bad starts

I think it’s mainly the gate drops and just getting back into it. Hopefully it’ll get better over time with more practice. It’s been a while since I’ve been on a proper race bike. I’ve been riding the same track, on the same mesh and the same bike for weeks at the Dog Pound, so you kind of get used to that feeling. Even yesterday I felt terrible on the bike because it was a fresh bike and things like that. It’s really just about learning all those things again, but we’ll figure them out.

Overall feeling

I think the biggest thing for me is that I’m glad I might look like myself again, but I don’t really feel like myself yet. It’s the little things you almost take for granted, like being more efficient on the bike. Right now I’m pretty lopsided. Every jump I’m landing with all my weight on my left side, and coming out of some of the turns with those edgy bumps where you want to get up on both feet and grip the bike, I can’t really do that. When I stand up and hit those edges, it kills my foot with that sharp jarring impact. So it’s really about trying to work through those things and figure it out. Body-wise, I’m pretty inefficient at the moment. My left leg gets tight, then my right arm gets tight because I’m hanging on harder with my right arm to make up for my right leg. It’s all connected. Like Hunter said, riding the dirt bike right now is actually a little easier than walking. I look pretty rough when I’m walking around. But it’s all part of it. We’re just going to keep learning and trying to figure out during the weeks between rounds and between motos what works and what makes it feel better, so I can give myself a better chance on race day. Everyone’s really good out there, and it’s hard to beat guys when they’re feeling 100 percent and you’re feeling like a 2 dollar t-shirt. So we’ll keep trying to improve for next weekend and continue figuring this ankle out to get it better.

Image: Octopi Media.

Race craft in return

I definitely feel like I’m almost too patient in those first few laps. I had to find out how much a pile of roost actually hurts. The previous times I’ve raced here I got the holeshot both times, so I never really had to deal with the roost. That was something new I had to learn. The biggest thing for me was trying not to turn one mistake into more mistakes. I was just trying to stay out of the carnage and not put myself into anything sketchy. I wanted to make it through that first lap and then try to find a flow from there. In the first moto I really tried to push hard, but it started getting sketchy and it just wasn’t working. The second moto was a little bit better because I tried to stay calmer and dissect the track more, figuring out where I could really push and where I couldn’t.

Racing Haiden Deegan

I was mostly trying to figure my own stuff out. I was focused on getting into a flow and working through everything, so I was more concentrated on myself than who was around me. It was really just another rider out there. I wasn’t thinking, ‘Oh, it’s a different person, I need to figure something out.’ I was just trying to sort my own riding out first, put everything together and start linking laps consistently.