HUNTER LAWRENCE’S LANDMARK 450SX WIN

Hunter Lawrence’s maiden 450SX win last weekend – and his increasingly healthy 2026 title prospects – underlines the 26-year-old Aussie’s potent combination of speed, consistency, racecraft and physical conditioning. And the all-important title-winner’s mindset to go with it!

Based on Hunter Lawrence’s incredible blend of speed and consistency over the first half-dozen rounds of this year’s AMA Supercross Championship, it was only a matter of time before the 26-year-old Aussie posted his maiden 450SX-class Main event win. So much so that the sport’s statisticians were working overtime to figure out when the last time a premier-class title-winner hadn’t won a Main event win after six rounds of the series (turns out it was back in the mid 1970s!). In 25 450SX-class starts that led up the last weekend, Hunter had notched up six podiums and 13 top-fives (and a couple of very narrow second places to his little bro, Jett, in the SMX title chase), but no Main event wins.

So, how cool was it to watch Hunter finally get the job done last weekend at Round 7 in Texas with such a hard-earned, impressive win! As Ricky Carmichael said from the commentary booth, “The quality and the style of the win says a lot about Hunter, both physically and mentally. But it was how Hunter won that impressed me the most.”

By that, RC was referring to the fact that Hunter had no gimmes in Texas. He straight-up caught and passed multi-time champs and legends of the sport (Eli Tomac, Cooper Webb and Ken Roczen) and then held the lead to the chequers, in spite of a small off-track excursion. And he posted the fastest lap of the Main en route to becoming the sport’s 70^th different premier-class race winner.

But in our minds, the most telling aspect of Hunter’s maiden victory was not just his speed, precision, physical conditioning and racecraft (all of which are givens with a dude of that calibre); but Hunter’s composed demeanour and the comments he made immediately after the win, which offered an insight into his mindset. Rather that appearing relieved or voicing predictable, throwaway clichés about ‘getting the monkey off my back’ or ‘finally bagging a win’, he displayed the sort of temperament and perspective that now has many pundits finally conceding that this Aussie is the real deal AND the man to beat for the 2026 450SX title!

“It’s cool, but we’ve got a lot of racing left,” a humble Hunter Lawrence said in his post-race podium interview in Texas. “It’s cool to be racing with the sport’s legends, and I’m happy to tick that little box. It’s a huge thank you to my team and everyone that’s around me. We’ve got an amazing group and that’s really the most valuable thing in my program. It takes a whole village to move mountains.”

The victory allowed Hunter Lawrence to extend his lead in the series standings to 4 points over Tomac. But will Hunter be able to retain the red plate after this weekend’s Round 8 in Daytona (where Tomac has notched up an unrivalled record of seven wins)? Maybe. Maybe not. But let’s just say fewer and fewer people are prepared to offer decent betting odds against Hunter Lawrence joining his brother, Jett, as an AMA 450SX Champion, and creating yet more history in the sport.