Houston SX II: Jett Lawrence bags maiden 250 win

Jett Lawrence finally showed the world what he’s truly capable of, winning his first Monster Energy Supercross 250 Main Event at Houston II. The Australian superstar has officially thrown down the gauntlet and announced his intentions for this East Coast 250 championship.

It was a night full of firsts in Houston for round two of the 2021 Monster Energy AMA Supercross championship. The first of those came in 250 Heat one….

Colt Nichols grabbed a commanding holeshot in the first race of the night, meanwhile championship protagonist Austin Forkner hit the deck early on. The Pro Circuit Kawasaki racer was caught in some first corner carnage and had a lot of work ahead of him if he wanted to advance directly to the main event.

With just a few laps of the race left to go Colt Nichols fell victim to the sand allowing Michael Mosiman to take over the race lead on his Troy Lee Designs Red Bull GasGas machine. Mosiman took the Heat (the first of his career) ahead of Nichols and Mitchell Oldenburg. Austin Forkner rode like man possessed to fight from dead last to fourth and allowing him to advance straight to the main.

Heat Two was Jett Lawrence’s first opportunity to shine. He took the holeshot ahead of Christian Craig and Max Vohland. Lawrence was laying down some real hot laps early on to stretch open a nice gap over the red-plate holder Christian Craig.

The rookie Max Vohland rode a particularly solid race and was battling hard with the experienced RJ Hampshire, with one lap to go Hampshire was able to make a pass stick on the KTM Factory rider to finish in third behind Craig and Lawrence, who took the first Heat race win of his young career.

The teenage sensation took that momentum directly into the main event. The Honda HRC pilot flew out of the gates and took a massive holeshot ahead of his championship rivals RJ Hampshire and Austin Forkner. Last week’s winner Christian Craig was not able to get out of the blocks quite so quickly this time around, but he made some nice passes on the opening lap to move his Star Racing Monster Energy Yamaha into the mix early on.

Seeing his rival stretch away with the race lead Austin Fornker seemed anxious to make a move into second position as quickly as possible. He made some small mistakes before a coming together with Hampshire saw the pair of them hit the deck.

This allowed the veteran Christian Craig and his Star Racing Yamaha team-mate Colt Nichols to slip into second and third respectively. With two minutes on the clock Colt Nichols struck a pass on his team mate to take over second.

Meanwhile Jett Lawrence was running away with the race lead, he opened a huge gap over his closest rivals and was able to lap up to eighth position. A dominating performance indeed. The Australian young gun crossed the line to claim his first ever Main Event win in only his eighth career SX start. 

The teenage wunderkind was as personable as ever on the podium, “This dog went woof woof,” barked Lawrence on the box. “I got a brilliant start, and the track was really technical which played into my favour. The sand section was tricky, but I’ve been eyeing up the section after it all day. I thought I could triple all the way through it.

“It just felt really good to be out there. It feels good to get a win under my belt so I’m not sat on the start gate going ‘okay you need to get a win today!’ I’m speechless almost, it’s just awesome. It feels good.”

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Championship points