Image: Octopi Media.

Hunter Lawrence led 14 laps of the first 450MX moto at RedBud before a crash ended his chance at the moto victory. Fortunately, Lawrence has stated he’s okay from the crash and the whole sequence that put him on the ground caught him by surprise.

After dueling most of the moto with title combatant Chase Sexton, Team Honda HRC’s Hunter Lawrence appeared to have the upper hand in the race coming to two laps to go. As he charged down the hill into the tricky off-camber corner of the RedBud track, Lawrence suddenly swapped big to the left and the resulting fishtail spit Lawrence to the ground.

He landed on his left shoulder and helmet area quite abruptly bouncing off the ground as Sexton rolled by into the lead. It took Lawrence a moment to gather himself, but once he did, he remounted and finished the moto in P2.

Due to a rough second moto causing him to go 2-4 on the day, Lawrence lost the championship lead in the process. But the Australian was simply happy to walk away at the end of the day and remained perplexed about the moment that flipped his day upside down.

“It happened so fast, and it was kind of weird,” said Lawrence. “A lot of things caught me off guard a little bit with hitting a bump or something and then by the time my wheels were on the ground again, the bike was completely not directly underneath me. I was constantly having to react to stuff to fix it and it just kicked.

“I tried to gas out of it and dropped the front wheel into the face of one of the really steep gnarly ones and that just like snapped so fast. Unlike the 250, when the old 450 goes, she bucks pretty hard. Strap yourself in for the ride and do your best to save it. I’m okay, like just kind of gave my head a bit of a knock, which all things considering we’ll take.”

Lawrence now sits seven points behind Sexton in the championship as the series moves into the second half this weekend at Spring Creek.