Roczen, Lawrence in Paris | Vital MX Transcript 1

The promoters of the annual Paris Supercross pulled off a magnificent feat for the fortieth anniversary of the event, as countless champions from around the world waltzed into Paris' La Défense Arena. Stars like Jett Lawrence, Hunter Lawrence and Ken Roczen prompted a capacity crowd. The racing delivered as well, despite the fact that options were limited on the circuit, as mistakes and passes ensured an ever-changing narrative.

Interviews with the aforementioned stars were previously published on Vital MX in video format. Now, in support of the written word and those who seek content in that form, those have been transcribed for a pleasurable reading experience. There will be a conscious effort by this scribe to deliver all interviews in text form from this day forth. A post-race chat with Jo Shimoda, the winner of the SX2 division, is available elsewhere.

Vital MX: A near-perfect weekend for you. Yesterday was a little smoother than today, but you got the job done and with a nice margin too. A good weekend!

Jett Lawrence: Yeah, no, it was a fun weekend! Yesterday was a lot easier than today. I had a little tip over yesterday and none today, thankfully, but I was definitely tired from the late night yesterday. The performance was not quite as good as last night, but it was still so fun here. The fans gave me a lot more energy! I had to have a cappuccino to help me get some energy, but it is just a fun round. Especially having Hunter [Lawrence] here and my new teammate, Jo [Shimoda]. It is always good having Jo around. It is kind of like old memories, being back on GEICO. It was a great weekend!

Maybe I imagined this, but I feel like your starts today were a lot worse than yesterday. Was that just because your reaction time was a bit slow?

Reaction time and probably skill level at that point in time. We were just kind of fudging it out of the gate a little bit! We were just trying to get out there. It definitely was not as good today, but I am blaming jet lag. I am putting my excuse on that.

I was going to say that the grate is different, so you have to adjust your technique for that, but it worked yesterday!

Yeah, you know, it was different mesh. I had a different dream last night to the night before, so I think that had a play in it a bit. There are multiple excuses that I could probably ramble on about right now, but I do not want to waste your time with them [laughs].

You raced Hunter a lot this weekend. Is it harder battling with him, because you do not want to make him mad, or is it easier because you know that he is not going to do anything too bad even if you do that?

Well, no, because he will still punch me if I piss him off. No matter whether I piss him off or not, he is still going to hit me! Mum is telling me about language [laughs]. It is fun racing with him. You know that it is going to be exciting racing because he is a smart racer. I was able to go up the inside of him yesterday but then I could not do the same to him today – he was a quick learner. It is always fun racing against him.

You did not mean to knock him down in the last race. Was there a lap, after you looked back and realized that he did crash, where you just thinking, "Oh, shit! I cannot believe that I did that."

It was kind of like a, "Oh!" My first thought was, "Oh, what is Dazzy [Darren Lawrence] going to think?" Two, "Hunter is going to uppercut me." The third thought was, "All right, I better win this." It was like, "Go, go, go." I got lucky with Kenny [Roczen] going down. It was just about riding it home after that and making sure that I sealed the deal with the win.

Last thing. Is there anything that you learned about the bike or racing it in supercross this weekend? Are you leaving with one new bit of knowledge that is quite a big deal?

Yeah! I could definitely tell you that thirteen minutes on those things is already hard enough with how much motorcycle it is. There are plenty of other things that I learnt. We are going to go back, work on them and try to get better. It was definitely a fun learning experience. It was not like there was a whole lot of pressure on the line! It was just a fun off-season race – it really was that.

Vital MX: There is a lot to get into this weekend, but first and foremost is the fact that you came out swinging with only three weeks on the bike. There is a lot of potential here and this must make you excited about what is to come – all of the initial signs are positive.

Hunter Lawrence: Yeah, thanks! It is cool. Just under three weeks, but it has been fun adapting to it. It is a hell of a lot of motorcycle to tame out there in supercross. I am honestly just happy that we were able to do this event. The past two years did not work out, so I'm super stoked to be here. We all know that racing is the best practice. We were able to come out, get a little bit of a benchmark, test with such little time on the bike and now we will continue onto A1. We have got a busy few weeks coming up for us, but it is good.

What was your reaction yesterday after Jett got you in the last turn?

I was really surprised! Man, it is tough. The Honda is so quiet and I did not hear him – he ran it up and had a shot in the corner after the whoops. I was like, "I got through that one!" I was too relaxed and had too much faith in him, the little shit. I did not even hear him there and was like, "Perfect! I'm cruising." He threw it up the inside and caught me off guard. I did not expect it to say the least. Safe to say that we are not racing for an AMA Supercross bonus on each night, so it caught me off guard.

The same move almost happened again in the first main event today, but you read it correctly and made sure that he did not do you twice.

Yeah! I told him afterwards that I was going to make sure that we both finished second and third before letting him do that again. It was funny and a good laugh – his speed is unreal and we are pretty damn close. It is awesome. Safe to say that he is the fastest in the world right now and to be that close with such a short time on the bike? Not bad, not bad.

This is a weird question, but where is the line where you may get pissed at Jett? Is there a line or do you feel like you have a relationship where anything goes and you can laugh about it afterwards?

Yeah, that is a good question. With higher stakes come higher emotions – that is fair to say. We are at a pre-season race here. What happened tonight? He said that he got kicked out in the whoops and was pissed about it. I have not even seen it yet, but that is what he said so that is what happened. I am sure that there will be times where I am out of control and he is on the worst end of that deal. It is what it is. We are racing and we finished first and second. Happy. Dad is happy, the team is happy and we are onto the real season.

After the crash in the last race, were you kind of over it or did you know that gaining a couple of positions would impact the overall result? Did you have the overall in mind?

No, it was just a normal training session. Finish off as strong as you can! I am not going to go out there and sandbag, although it was extremely tough. I was very, very tired over these past three days. It has been so damn busy. We have been working flat out like a one-armed brick layer in Baghdad. I am happy that we can relax, get some food and get an early night's sleep. Well, not too early. You know, relatively early compared to the last two nights.

I watched your crash in the last main event yesterday with Jeremy Seewer and he said, "Oh, he basically saved it!" My reaction was, "What?" You landed on your head, from my point of view, and I do not feel like that was a save.

Yeah, you could say that the helmet was pretty totaled. It could have been worse, yes, because I could have landed into the face of a whoop. That was positive! It just happened so fast, honestly. We are still working things out and improving the motorcycle. I am adapting to the bike as well – it is a lot of motorcycle to hold onto out there. Yeah, a bit of both. I am happy to be walking away a little bit bruised and banged up. We got through tonight healthy and safe.

What is the biggest thing that you have learnt this weekend, as far as the bike goes? Is there something that you thought was working well until you got into a race situation?

Yes and no. Like I said, it is just under three weeks [on the bike]. The first week was media stuff, then it was one week of testing and one week of laps. I am still adjusting every day. The first day was like, "Holy crap! Slow this thing down." In 250s you are like, "Give me more! Give me more!" This was like, "Give me the slowest thing that you have got." There was nothing that caught me by surprise – racing is the best practice. I am glad that we got to test things out, because it gives us more of an idea and direction for what is to come.

Vital MX: Highs, lows and everything in between. I am not sure that I have ever seen Ken Roczen have such a chaotic weekend.

Ken Roczen: Yeah, honestly, you and me both! This was a weird one. I was trying to compensate some stuff with the bike. I didn't really feel that great on it. I was actually riding with Motocross of Nations fuel yesterday and I was like, "Dude! My bike feels so slow." I feel like, kind of by accident, I had a lot of stuff to deal with. I have not done any changes to my bike lately. We just had to compensate this, that and whatnot. I have had so many good weekends, I feel like, and sometimes you are bound to have a weekend where stuff does not go right. That was definitely this weekend. Even in the last one, I do not know if I have ever crashed twice… Before that I almost lost the front in the whoops right there!

I don't know. It was a tough one for me. I just never really felt like myself, even yesterday, but that is okay. Like I said on my post before, I stare these bad weekends in the eyes. I text Larry [Brooks] after Abu Dhabi and said, "You know what? The struggle kind of made it fun." Sometimes it takes a little bit to see it. I am not pounding my head in the sand. I have been feeling really good at home and not had any issues. Nonetheless, this was really good practice and it is off to Australia now. That will be a hell of a trip!

Do you feel like the crashes were a result of being so distracted by the bike issues? Maybe you were overthinking what the bike was doing, so your head was not in the game?

Well, I made some changes for the last one too. I noticed right away that my bike felt too soft in the rear – it was too squatted. I did not really have much weight on the front and that hurt me exiting turns. I could not really get on the throttle. I had no weight on the front and then, on top of that, the track was really slippery and that is why I lost the front. I almost lost the front before the whoops before I actually crashed, then I did in the ninety over here. I then lost the front again and crashed for a second time. It was a moto to forget in the end. Lately, when I make changes, my bike likes it. You can make changes and it is not like a crazy insane amount of difference, if you know what I mean? It was just not really working here.

Do you feel like you have work to do now then? Do you feel like you need to go home and address these problems? Do you just say, "It was Paris – a weird event – so we will forget about and go back to our happy place."

No, no, no. I have not really changed my settings in quite some time. It is the same stuff that I raced with at the Los Angeles Coliseum and some of the other races. I have not really changed my stuff. Something happened the day that I left and we were flying, so we had to build stuff. It did not quite feel right. I think that this was just a one off – I am by no means worried about going back to test and flipping everything upside down. I have ridden this set-up in all kinds of different scenarios and I am confident that it is good enough to do my job.

From the outside looking in, I would guess that the second main event today was when you were the happiest with your bike. Was it then or was there another moment through the weekend that was the sweet spot?

I would definitely say that this second one was where I felt like I could ride it the best. I made some changes afterwards, just because sometimes we feel stuff and I want to learn the bike on top of it too. I was like, "Oh, let's just make a little change." It was just too much – the change was way too much. The change was small but it affected it way too much, honestly, so that was the end of that. That was all she wrote!

Was it just suspension that you were fiddling with or power delivery and that sort of stuff with the engine?

Well, I did not quite have the fuel that I ride with in the USA yesterday. That was one of the things. It was mainly suspension, but the fuel thing messes with the idle and stuff. Our bikes in general are mapped for our stuff – there are normally no problems. This Motocross of Nations stuff was just a little bit… It acted funky. You need the power off of the bottom to do certain stuff, especially in supercross, and this track was not up to spec. The gaps for the triples are actually really big, so I just did not have enough oomph. That kind of threw me off. It was just a bunch of stuff that added up, I guess.

How is the foot, because I heard that you dinged it again in the second main last night? Is it a little worse after the crashes today or where are we at?

Well, I crashed on my left today. It did not affect my right foot. It just kind of gets pissed off – you walk around on it all day. It actually feels the worst in the boot. It is fine to ride with, but when I just stand there… It is the ball of my foot and it is still swollen. You are constantly walking on it and rolling off of your toe – that is what hurts. My crash yesterday was not a big crash, but just dabbing my foot on the ground was another one of those stingers. All it does is prevent it from taking the next step in the healing process. You keep aggravating it! It is just soft tissue stuff, so I am not worried that there is anything wrong with it.

You are off to Australia tomorrow. Are you going to ride this week or are you basically having a week off before Melbourne?

I am having a week off of riding, but it is not going to be a resting week. We have a lot… Are you going as well?

No, this is the first time that we are going to go our separate ways.

Good for you! It is like a six-and-a-half-hour flight to Dubai and fourteen from there. I land there at 11:00pm, so if I get a lot of sleep on the plane and then have to deal with it being the middle of the night… It will be interesting! I am not really riding throughout the week. I will hopefully go to Urban Surf to surf.

That is the main reason that you go to WSX in Australia!

Yeah [laughs]. I can go there for work, but being able to surf a wave pool is pretty cool. I have to see how my foot is. I am not fully set on it, but I would like to. I need to get a little bit of wellness in. We have been doing a lot of travelling and stuff, so I need to schedule a massage and maybe hop in the sauna.