Image: Octopi Media.

Runaway 450MX leader Jett Lawrence has called for lapped riders to have extra ‘awareness’, citing the potential dangers of closing speeds in the premier class of Pro Motocross.

In extending his winning streak to 10 races as a rookie, Lawrence lapped up to 10th place in moto one and P9 in moto two at RedBud, with a chunk of riders in the 40-rider field being more than two laps down at each moto’s conclusion.

“For me, obviously we’re going fast enough to get around them eventually, but when they see the blue flag, it’s like they start going – it’s like a sign to do hot laps all of a sudden,” explained the 19-year-old. “So, I don’t know if they need to start throwing the blue flags at them or something [laughs]…

“A lot of the guys were good, every now and then you’ll have a lapper who will get out of the way and see it. So it’s not all of them, but there are those few guys who just have no awareness around and they don’t know that there’s another race going on besides theirs.

“It’s almost like there should be a rule at some point in time if you’re how many seconds down and you get lapped, and almost getting lapped again, you almost get pulled off, because at that point it’s just dangerous that you’re going that slow. It was just a pain because sometimes it creates good racing, but also it screws over the one guy because he’s doing really good and hitting his marks, but then a lapper comes in and ends up messing him and getting tangled up.

“It’s very easy to get tangled up with these guys cos they’re struggling, obviously. It’s just a bit of a struggle because obviously us three and the rest of the top five-to-10 guys are going a lot faster than those guys and it’s a lot of laps, so for us, it gets dangerous.”

Lawrence continued his perfect rookie 450MX season to date at RedBud with two moto wins, collecting a fifth-consecutive overall, and he leads the championship by 57 points ahead of Dylan Ferrandis (Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing) as Pro Motocross moves to Southwick this Saturday.