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What's Up With J-Law?
What's Up With Jason Lawrence?
By Michael Hannas
2008 West Coast Supercross Lites Champion Jason Lawrence has gotten into his fair share of trouble since turning pro, but many of were hoping his suspension from the AMA Motocross Series last summer for getting into a fight with a fan in the pits would be just what J-Law needed to turn his life around and stop getting in trouble. At Anaheim 1 this year, Lawrence looked focused and ready to go right out of the gate. Although J-Law was not enjoying the level of support you would expect for a defending champion, as the machine he is riding this year is reportedly his 2008 YZ250F from last year just freshened up and is missing any shred of the color blue on it with a black and white Monster scheme, Lawrence looked fast and focused. However, a bad night at A1 and at pretty much every race since seems to have put the brakes on J-Law's season.
The fans that attended the San Francisco Supercross hoping to watch J-Law in action, whether it be on the track or in the pits, were most likely very disappointed when they arrived and Lawrence wasn't racing. His team issued a statement saying he had gotten food poisoning the night before and had received an IV, which made him ineligible to race the next day per AMA rules. However, the fishy smell in the air at AT&T Park wasn't just the sea breeze; it was J-Law's managers misinterpretation of the AMA rule book. A rider is not allowed to receive an IV drip during an event- which means once practice has started until the final main is finished. There is no AMA rule against getting an IV in a hospital for food poisoning the night before the race.
Why J-Law really didn't race in San Francisco we don't know. Was he really too sick to ride, or did his team really not read the rulebook? What we do know is that he had enough energy to join his buddy Josh Hansen in confronting and then fist-fighting Steve Boniface after the race, which many people witnessed in pits. Enough is enough. I've been a J-Law fan since he turned pro myself, and have always been the one to argue for his side when all my buddies think he should be banned from the AMA. But next time his name comes up, I think I'll just keep my mouth shut.
