The Emergence of Hunter Lawrence

On January 6, Hunter Lawrence didn’t even qualify for the main event in his 450SX debut. Less than two months later, he earned his first DNF. A week after that he missed his first race so he could rest a shoulder injury.

Nobody would have bet on H. Lawrence entering round 31 of the SuperMotocross World Championships with the points lead. Maybe not even Hunter Lawrence, who won his first ever 450 race when he finished 1-3 at Texas Motor Speedway and taking the slimmest leads (+1) over Chase Sexton and +9 over his brother, Jett Lawrence.

Now he’s one win away from winning the SMX title, which would mean a second year in a row that a rookie took it.

So how in the hell did he get to this point? He rebounded after missing the Birmingham Supercross and finished the SX season strong with two podiums. He followed it up with an impressive Pro Motocross season where he finished 2^nd in the standings (9 podiums).

By all accounts, he’s having an all-time rookie season. All that, despite posting the trifecta of racing’s dreaded “DNs” – DNQ, DNF and DNS.

Here’s how Hunter’s season stacks up against some of the sport’s recent greats:

Hunter’s Rookie Season vs. Recent Hall of Famers

Looking at these, Hunter Lawrence is having one of the best rookie seasons we’ve seen in quite some time. There are some legit comparisons, such as:

• His MX podiums equal RC’s rookie tally (but lack the wins).
• His SX podiums are on par with RC and Eli Tomac’s rookie years.

For some reason we’re not talking about Hunter like others…