I don’t claim to condone some of the shit Jason Lawrence has done over the last two seasons, but I am convinced he is getting an unfair rap. As I was standing with Jason and his mechanic as we all waited for the second 450 moto to stage, I witnessed everything that supposedly led to his gate penalty and ultimately, the black flag. That said, he got screwed!

In the first 450 moto, Lawrence busted his master cylinder… yes, you read correctly. As I heard one mechanic say, “I don’t think I could bust off the master with a sledgehammer.” So, you can imagine Lawrence, and his mechanic Toshi, were more than a little worried about the brakes in the second moto. The 450 guys all gathered behind the start gate after the second 250 moto, but the wait was excruciatingly long due to the live coverage. So, during the wait, Lawrence hopped on his bike and putted it back and forth tapping the brakes for about 20 seconds. With that, he returned the bike to Toshi and went about his business chatting with Josh Grant and Josh Hill. Within minutes, an AMA official pulled him aside and told him he was stripped of his fourth gate pick and would have to start from the 40th. Naturally, J-Law flipped. He yelled and mouthed off (as most of us would have done) and then threatened not to move from his gate.

Eventually, they coaxed him into his 40th gate, and everything seemed to be right with the world again… then he got black flagged. The word is that he jumped the gate, which is against the rules… but after personal inspection of the AMA rulebook, I found that jumping the gate does not warrant a black flag. It clearly states that “In the event of a rider jumping the starting device, he shall be penalized one lap.” Hmmm, one lap is a little different than a black flag.
I dug deeper. Where does it say Jason Lawrence can’t check his brakes while there is an indefinite wait for TV scheduling? And where does it say he is to be docked gate picks? I couldn’t find it.

Is J-Law wreckless? Yes. Did he deserve to race at Hangtown? Yes. Just sayin.