Jett Lawrence failed to earn the holeshot in both Washougal Nationals motos and did not lead the opening laps, but he showed patience and kept his perfect streak of moto and overall wins alive in the 2023 Pro Motocross season.
Dylan Ferrandis paced the field in on the opening lap of Moto 1, but his advantage lasted only for that one trip around the track. In the second moto, Aaron Plessinger jumped into the lead and paced the field for three laps, which is the deepest any rider has taken Lawrence into a round this season.
“There’s a first time for everything,” Lawrence said after being reminded he did not win either moto in last year’s 250 overall win. “I was just pumped to make my way around Chase (Sexton) on that start. I was pushing hard.”
Sexton finished second in both motos for the third consecutive week and finished second overall again. Once more, Sexton closed the gap on Lawrence in the final half of the race, but the only way he was going to make his way about Lawrence was to ride beyond his comfort level. Sexton tucked his wheel after closing to within a second of Lawrence and tipped over taking the pressure off Lawrence in the process.
Plessinger faded to third and was more than 45 seconds off the pace at the checkers, but he put his name in the box score as the rider who stayed ahead of Lawrence for the longest in a race.
Jason Anderson in fourth and Dylan Ferrandis rounded out the top five.
A pair of fourth-place finishes was enough to give Anderson the final spot on the podium overall, which was his first in four rounds since returning from a neck injury.
Last week Hunter Lawrence made a statement by coming within less than a lap of winning both motos to score the overall win after two weeks of suffering a DNF in one moto each round.
Haiden Deegan made an even louder statement at Washougal as he swept the 250 class to become the first rider in this class to do so this season. It was not long ago that Deegan scored his first Supercross podium at Daytona. As remarkable as it seems, the rookie rider is now a serious contender for the 2023 Pro Motocross championship, trailing the more experienced Lawrence by just three points.
Justin Cooper also cut into Lawrence’s points lead. His third- and second-place finishes in the pair of motos trimmed two points from the lead and while he still needs a little help from Lawrence in the form of a mistake if he wants to assume the lead, Cooper can see the top spot only 19 points ahead.
Lawrence was challenging for his fourth consecutive moto podium until he lost the front wheel in a heavily shadowed portion of the track in the second race and washed out. He finished fourth in Moto 2 to take third overall.
