It was a convincing return to racing for Jett Lawrence in playoff one of the 2024 SuperMotocross World Championship Finals at ZMax Dragway, taking the 450SMX win with a 2-1 scorecard, while it was pure dominance from Haiden Deegan in the 250SMX category, sweeping both races with come-from-behind wins. Both riders were available to the media after the races for this Debrief feature.

450SMX

Image: Octopi Media.

This is the first time we’ve had the chance to see you really race [Eli Tomac]. Did you learn anything when you were behind him?

I think a key thing I saw is he had the paddle, so in the sand if I could try to stay as close as I can, or even, I could maybe gain a little bit everywhere else where it was a bit harder pack because I had the knobby tyre. I think a lot of people had it, too. So I was just trying to make sure if I can just be close and put pressure more on the slick spots, that’d kind of help. But, I mean, I got to race him a little bit in Supercross last year, but I think, yeah, everyone’s riding style on outdoors is always different to Supercross, so I had a good two motos behind him, kind of learned some stuff. First one, not as much because he was gone, but the second, at least, I got to watch him and kind of pick up on a few things.

In Phoenix, I feel like some of your comments about Eli and Beast Mode got taken out of context. What was your take on experiencing Beast Mode for the first real time tonight?

Yeah, back then I wasn’t really good with my words. I still ain’t now, so that’s completely wrong, but no, it was cool. I mean, I was kind of dealing with my own stuff. Obviously the first one, trying to get back in my flow and obviously lost that time at the first part, but that second one, yeah, it was fun. I mean, we’re going hard, and yeah, I mean, that Yamaha is really loud and our bikes obviously quite opposite, it’s very quiet, so once I got around I still couldn’t hit my bike. It was, I think, obviously a big thing with our engine and the air intake where it’s on the Yamaha, it’s a lot quieter than that. But no, it’s cool to experience it and I hope it stays around Beast Mode because it’s always fun racing someone with such knowledge, and yeah, speed obviously too.

You said that it was always been a dream to obviously battle with the great Eli Tomac, so is that something you’re looking forward to obviously moving forward, and is that what you dreamed of, was kind of going down to the last lap right there to the chequered flag with Eli?

Yeah, no, exactly. I think it was obviously really cool thing. So I think in Eli’s standpoint, I think it’s like him wanting to race Ricky Carmichael or one of those guys. You want to race the best at the time and you want to battle with him, and obviously right now Eli’s probably the biggest name and has most championships for sure right now in this class. So yeah, I got… It was an awesome race. I mean, the one cool thing is with racing against a champion is that there’s no quit. There’s always fighting until the chequered flag. So I think it’s always cool, and yeah, it’s definitely a bucket list, kind of checked off whether if I won it or not. I think it just getting to battle with him. I think it’s just a really cool thing and an honor.

It seemed like the first one to two laps, you’re a little hesitant. The pace was maybe a little bit off, the guys in front of you and the consequence is that, say in the first moto, Hunter [Lawrence] was able to pass you, and second moto, Chase was able to get right on you. Is that intentional? Are you waiting for the race to come to you and to figure out your lines?

Yeah, I like getting passed the first few laps… No, I’m trying to go, for sure. It’s just, like I said, it’s my first race back. It’s a different angle for me. I haven’t had any time off in the past where it’s the first – it’s a learning stage for me, and yeah, there’s this first few laps, so I just got to get that race pace back in me and kind of get used to sparking straight away. It’s been a while, so it’s just kind of learning that.

Everyone’s talked a lot about the thumb injury, but before the thumb injury, you were dealing with consequences of your crash in Hangtown and your shoulder was sore. Did you get that all figured out?

Yeah, obviously my shoulder was bugging me quite a lot in the outdoor season, and surprisingly just needed just to rest and we didn’t really do too much. We did some therapy on it. Obviously after a week or two, it ended up being fine again, and yeah, no, I’m good.

It’s the second year now, we’ve been able to see this structure throughout the year of how long this goes. What’s your thoughts on a season going this far, this many races throughout the year? You’ve got two more back-to-back weeks… How do you guys feel about that?

I think the 31 rounds is kind of stupid. It’s nice, obviously, when you have an injury you can come back, but I think if you look at any other top sport, they’re not doing this many races. I think, yeah, the only reason we all come back, so obviously that paycheck at the end of the day, for the bonus. So I think if it wasn’t for that, a lot of guys wouldn’t show up, but I hope in the future we have less because I think it makes it more rare. You don’t see F1 or MotoGP doing 36 rounds, so I think hopefully in the future we can just have less so it makes it more of a rare thing and more on a special occasion.

The economics of it, just to play the Feld and MX Sports side, is that the huge TV money that came in, I think it was like $7-million or something, was basically predicated on 31 rounds, and it’s something that we’ve spoken about a bunch of times just trying to brainstorm ways where it’s like, ‘Okay, we need to do 31 races to have a season with playoffs’. Is there anything creative that you guys have thought about that we could implement? Because I just think the benefits of the 31 races really are there in terms of the sport big picture.

Yes and no. I think that the biggest thing you got to look at… So Chase [Sexton] has done every single round, and now we’re going to a high-speed track where they obviously want to look after our safety very well and they do, but we’re trying to set up a bike that’s supposed to handle enough G-force to get to the rhythm lanes, but then it’s got to be soft enough for the fast sections, and it can create a lot of sketchy moments of stuff being too stiff. And we’re at the end of our season. So for, people like me, Eli, guys who’ve had injuries, it’s not too bad because we’ve had that break – we’ve had time off – where Chase has still done every single round, so he’s obviously… I think anyone would be tired after doing already how many rounds. So I think it’s if we can just mainly just cut the rounds down, I think it would make it a lot safer for other riders too, because then at least for these last ones where you need the energy, you’ll have that because you’re not going through how many other rounds before. Even Supercross, there’s 17 rounds there, and it’s great and always been like that, but we don’t need 17 rounds. It makes it… I think especially once you get to a point where someone’s just already won so many times where it’s got such a points lead, it’s useless. Where if they cut it to 15, 14, it makes it a lot more exciting, so everything’s closer. You have to do things now. The 250s are exciting because you have to execute every round, where in 450s you can have a bad race and still have a chance to win it. Hopefully in the future they might cut a lot more races off just so it makes it more exciting for athletes too. And they might stick around more because they’re not just kind of wear and tear at their body throughout the whole year than have such a short off-season and then trying to get going again. The MXGP guys have a very long off-season, so they get to recoup. I think it’s more so just for us because of safety, because we’re trying to push the edge and we’re not going to back down, but at some point it’s still dangerous for us. We want to try and do this for a long time because we love it.

250SMX

Image: Octopi Media.

Haiden, in some ways you made it look easy, but you said on the podium you had horrible starts. Take us through what it took and how deep you had to dig to go 1-1.

Yeah, they weren’t great starts. For how good I did today I actually felt kind of off. Anyway, it worked, so that’s all that matters. We’re definitely going to go back this week and watch tape and figure out what I need to get better at.

This big track and you riding the way that you do, what does this kind of track allow you to do differently that a Supercross or Motocross track wouldn’t?

There are definitely technical lines that you can find if you have good race craft, so I feel like that’s what’s cool about these SMX races, you’re mixing in some things that we’re not used to. It’s definitely tricky out there, but it’s cool.

With the starts that you had, did you get to see some race craft from others and what other riders do differently, and did you have to find certain places to pass? Because people said you couldn’t really pass on this track.

When you start in the back you definitely see lines where you can make up time, but I felt like today I was finding lines that no one was doing, so I don’t think it really mattered in the first place. But definitely some big lines out there, and in the sand I felt really good too. They’re things people could’ve picked up on easily, but I just sent it through there.

The split starts are something we’re seeing a little more often now. Walk us through your approach to that and how you pick a side.

It’s a little difficult, honestly. It’s kind of cool though, you come around the first turn and you get your hopes up cause you’re in like fourth, then you come out in eighth and it’s like, ‘Damn’. But, it’s still pretty cool.

You never really seem to address any of your criticism directly, but you always seem like you ride with so much attitude. It’s like you’re sending a message, do you feel like with this MXoN drama that’s gone on over these last few weeks, today is a bit of a statement ride in a sense?

Yeah, everything fuels me. Anything. I mean, you can say one word and that fuels me to work harder and that’s just how I work. I mean dude, even RJ [Hampshire], he was behind me in qualifying yelling at me and I was like, ‘Dude, don’t do that.’ Like, that’s not smart. And obviously, that didn’t work for him, so that was not smart. I get fueled by anything. Any crap talk. If you guys want to say something to me, say it because it’s going to make me better.

So there’s that side to you, but when Julien [Beaumer] crossed the line, you looked genuinely stoked for him. Were you actually happy when you saw Julien?

Yeah, I’m always hyped for them to get on the podium for the first time. It’s definitely cool. But, once you start becoming a threat, that’s when I kind of turn sides as you guys see, [laughs]. But I had to give him props.

It looks like you have a lot of fun piecing these SMX tracks together and working them out, talk to us about that.

Yeah, I enjoy these tracks a lot. It’s like a fun Supercross track, it’s kind of like what I rode when I was younger. It’s good, you have to use every level of your skill to ride these tracks, so I enjoy it.

Last year here, the track was really fast. This year, it looked like the layout was a lot better for racing. What are your thoughts on the track this year versus last year?

Yeah, the track was solid. It was actually better for the races. In qualifying it didn’t flow as good, then come race time it pieced together better. I think this year the track was a little better.

You said earlier that there were things you didn’t like about your riding today. What were they specifically?

I just didn’t execute everything that I was supposed to, there are just little things that I’ll go back and get better at. The clear one is the start, but just some things I’m going to go back and work on.

There were a few times in that big rhythm that you were doing where it looked like it was starting to get a little dicey. Do you get worried about that stuff?

No, I didn’t really feel it would get sketchy all day, but I knew if I could get that rhythm, then probably no one else would do it. I literally had to flick the bike in the transition to quad it, so I knew that’d be big I could clear it, and it was. It was a good passing spot.