Well, last week they beat him! This week they passed him!

Small goals when it comes to solving the riddle of Jett Lawrence in 450 Pro Motocross, who is now 18 for 19 in his career for overall wins. Last week Eli Tomac and Aaron Plessinger beat him in one moto when they started ahead him, this time Plessinger passed Lawrence for the lead in moto one, only for Lawrence to quickly strike back. Both said it came down to line choice.

“Like Jett said, I had some really, really good lines and I think I should have been a little bit more patient and waited till maybe the last lap to try to make the pass cause when I made the pass, he figured out all my lines and all my secrets!” said Plessinger in the post-race press conference.

"Well, I was starting to question if I was color blind because I swear I looked back and I saw a red bike and then there's an orange fender on the inside," joked Lawrence, who had spent much of the moto trying to hold off his brother and Honda teammate Hunter, only to get sneak attacked by Plessinger on a KTM. 

“It’s 100 percent difficult to have eyes in the back of your head to see what’s going on, it’s hard,” said Jett to Steve Matthes after the race. “You can hear them but you don’t know what lines they’re taking. You don’t want to take the risk of taking a different line and it costs you. I think that’s how AP got around me, I thought I would take a different line and go outside around the sweeper, and he went inside and he nailed it. So it’s difficult. You need to have good eyes and good ears.”

Lawrence explained further how difficult it was to keep track of the lines on the rutted, soft Thunder Valley track.

“It changes very, very quickly,” he said. “There’s 40 guys out there so you have to know when a line is going to go away. Also there’s 10 ruts going across and it’s hard to remember which one you hit the lap before! Multiple times I went thinking I was in the rut I was in the lap before and I was in a different one, and it was worse, and I was like, 'Dammit.' I was using objects off the side of the track to try and make sure I got lined up to what rut it was. Using things like that.”

Plessinger very nearly had his first career 450 moto win, but instead took the ninth second place finish of his career. As usual, though, he was in a good mood about it.

“He went right back by me [once he figured out the lines], but like he said, it was such a fun battle and just being up there with those guys and battling and making passes is all I can really ask for,” said Plessinger.

While he’s still yet to grab that elusive win, Plessinger definitely feels even more competitive this season, even better than last year when he was routinely on the podium while battling champion Chase Sexton and Hunter Lawrence. His improvement is simple.

“The thing that helped me most is having a full supercross season, not getting hurt, and then coming into outdoors totally ready,” he said. “You know, I, I haven't had that since 2021 and in 2021 I got a few podiums outdoors. Man, it's like my body just feels really good. Like that first moto, I could push and that's when I made the pass on Jett. I said to myself, ‘Run and hide, run and hide.’ But obviously he didn't let me!”

In the second moto it was Eli Tomac’s turn to push Lawrence for the lead, and it was yet another battle of the titans until Tomac fell. He admitted he rushed a corner a bit because he wanted to get close heading toward a section with multiple lines.

“Yeah, I felt like in moto one I just got a little bit hung up in a battle with Hunter and then I was never able to finish it [the pass] and then kind of got stuck in a pace. So that was that was frustrating and then had a little bit of luck when he fell over there with that and then you put me in third. The second moto, of course I was able to make a better charge, was pretty close to Jett. I thought I had a really good line and then got a little excited and dumped it over. So, it's tough to make that mistake again. It is what it is, though. Jett’s riding really well and I'll just try again next weekend.”

As for Lawrence, there was still an improvement in his own feeling on the Honda HRC Progressive machine. He’s a moving target, for sure, as while Plessinger Tomac and others are improving, so is Lawrence.

“The bike was a lot better,” he told Matthes. “The team worked hard and they did very well. The first moto my shock was a bit too stiff but that was on my behalf, I wanted that bit more hold up. I didn’t realize that when I get into a flow I get a bit more central on the bike and I’m not as heavy on the rear. Little mistakes on my behalf with that, the team picked up on it and made a shock change for the second moto.”