This is the best story we’ve read about Jett Lawrence and the Lawrence family’s journey to date. Written by ESPN senior writer Alyssa Roenigk it delves deep into the mind of Jett and his rise to the top of the sport with great insights from Hunter, Dazzy and his Mum Emma to name a few. Here’s the start of the story and you can click the link at the bottom to continue reading it on the ESPN website, it’s worth the read!
JETT LAWRENCE IS lining up a 10-foot putt in his bedroom as he explains why, when he’s not riding a dirt bike, he’s working on his golf game.
“I hate sucking,” says Lawrence, who has placed two golf balls on the carpet about 2 inches apart. His bedroom is large, sparsely decorated with a collection of candid Polaroids and a 4-foot-tall stuffed penguin in a polka-dot sunhat. Lawrence bought this house in a gated golf community in Dade City, Florida, in January, a few years after he took up the game. He rarely plays 18, but he’s obsessed with getting better. That same relentlessness drives him in motocross.
“I remember the first time I lost a race,” Lawrence says, his sandy hair curled into ringlets by the humidity. “I was 4 and got second.” He taps a third ball into the space between the others. “I bawled my eyes out,” he says, and sinks another putt. “My first 250 EMX race in Europe, I was 14 racing against guys in their 20s and 30s and I didn’t even qualify. I was bawling then, too. I hated that feeling.”
Lawrence hasn’t experienced that feeling much lately, at least not on a motocross track. Only 20, he is the fourth rider in history, and the first Australian, to win four titles in the 250 class of Supercross and Pro Motocross, and this summer, he moved up to the 450 premier class for Pro Motocross. In August, he became the first premier-class rookie, and only the third rider in history, to go undefeated.
“On the start line, I always think, ‘Could this be the moto when I get beat?'” Lawrence says and picks up his putter. With his square jaw and high cheekbones, he looks like central casting’s idea of a superstar athlete. “That fear is what pours fuel on the fire.”
Continue reading here: https://www.espn.com/auto/story/_/id/38440295/jett-lawrence-motocross-undefeated-season