Double Podium Finishes for Team Honda HRC at Seattle Supercross!
While the Seattle Supercross was tinged by a sense of “what could have been” for Team Honda HRC, it was hard for the squad to be disappointed with the actual result: podium main-event finishes by Jett Lawrence and Jo Shimoda (in 450SX and 250SX West, respectively), and a solid seventh-place finish by Hunter Lawrence, all on a track where errors were frequent and potentially consequential. Importantly, Jett also heads to round 12 with a decent 16-point lead in the championship chase.
Following a 450SX heat-race sweep by Hunter and Jett Lawrence (a career first for the former), the main event kicked off with both brothers mired mid-pack in turn 1. After the first lap, Jett and Hunter sat eighth and 12th, respectively, and they maintained those spots after another lap. At that point, Jett rocketed his CRF450RWE through the pack, leveraging a couple of smooth moves he was able to consistently pull (leaping over a wall jump and doing a triple-triple in a rhythm section). He sat in fourth place by lap 5 and took over third on lap 10, but his charge was balked when he went down while trying to pass Cooper Webb for second. He was able to get back to third place rather quickly and cut the gap down to the leaders dramatically again, only to be stopped in his tracks by a lapped rider who was stuck on the difficult track. From there, he rode to a safe third-place result. Meanwhile, Hunter spent the first half of the race in 11th, but the second half saw him pick up momentum and climb to seventh, setting his fastest time on the penultimate lap.
In the 250SX class, Shimoda exited turn 1 in about eighth place, and he sat in seventh after the first lap. He held that spot for five laps before a fall contributed to him dropping back to eighth at the midway point, but then he found some speed and mounted a charge. The Japanese racer overtook one rider per lap until he made it to fourth, and he moved into third five laps from the end, then held it to the finish for his second podium result in a row.
Learn more about Team Honda HRC: ama.hondaracingcorporation.com
