Nashville could prove to be a pivotal round in the 2026 450SX title hunt, where Honda HRC Progressive’s Hunter Lawrence earned a clutch win in the Music City, building a 10-point championship advantage in the process. In this Debrief feature, Lawrence speaks on a number of topics following the main event.

Image: Octopi Media.

Learning the ropes

Honestly, the biggest thing I would say is the past two weekends I’ve learned is, obviously, hindsight’s a great thing. You look back to Detroit and you go, maybe you should have settled for third. Maybe it wouldn’t have crashed and still have a pretty healthy double digit points lead. But it just puts an emphasis on how important it is to be healthy at every round or the healthiest version of yourself. It’s so gnarly and this is my first Supercross season being at, quote unquote, all the rounds so far, touch wood. It’s gnarly, man. The 450 class is no joke and just the schedule itself is extremely tough. It’s a whole newfound respect for the boys that have been doing this year in and out for the past, gee, however many years.

Mindset changes

No, I don’t think it would have really changed. I mean, we still got four more races. That’s a lot of racing, so I’m just trying to get as many points, trying to make up for the past two weekends. That’s it, honestly it.

Hard-pack settings

We just left the bike all day. It was good. I feel like that kind of track was more just getting in tune with the feeling, the connectivity of like, you know, the traction honestly was a huge thing. I mean, I felt like we maybe hit three quarters of a throttle or maybe half throttle like once out there. It’s like a 450 on that track is, I mean, on any track is tough, but like that track when you have so much horsepower and it’s just like, you got to be so smooth, it’s tricky.

Image: Octopi Media.

The wrist injury

I’ve been obviously rehabbing it as much as I can. You know, when you get home on a Sunday and you got a flight on Thursday, it’s only realistically a three, four day week at home. So you’re trying to do as much as you can and ice it and red light and everything under the sun, you know, recovery wise, hyperbaric, all that. So it’s good. I just rode a little less this week, tried to ride a little more last week and it was just weak and wasn’t quite ready. You can only, you know, heal the body so fast sometimes.

Gibson collaboration

It’s awesome. I mean, Gibson is such a, it holds such a prestigious elite aura in Nashville and the world. I mean, with all the rock stars and artists that they support and use their stuff, it’s cool. And when you’re kind of in Gibson garage and you’re walking through the backstage areas and even just like the storage rooms and all that, it’s like you just can’t help but like feel this presence of greatness. And it’s cool. It’s just like a little special aura about it here and it’s cool, so it’s special for sure.