HRC factory rider, Jett Lawrence looked pretty cool when asked about his soon to be new rival, Haiden Deegan, at the press conference for the winners of the Budds Creek event last weekend.

No doubt, the championship of 2025 is the most important thing for the talented aussie and he should be able to deal with the cocky American in 2026.

Talent wise, there doesn’t seem to be a big difference, but you just get the feeling Lawrence is a generational talent and Deegan is just a very good rider.

If it does come down to the whole Ricky Carmichael vs James Stewart deal for these two, then we know the same thing will probably happen. Raw speed doesn't always beat race smarts. We will see in 2026 won’t we, but I am backing the Australian to continue to be the king of AMA racing.

As a young man, I was a fan of Marty Smith, a very lay back and cool rider, and I wasn't a fan of Bob Hannah, who was a loud mouth. I get the feeling most people prefer that respectful attitude.

Whatever happens, 2026 in the AMA 450 class, we get the Lawrence brothers vs Haiden Deegan, and while all hopes for American fans lay with Deegan, the rest of the World probably are going with the cool, calm and collected Aussies.

Jett Lawrence: I’m looking forward to it. I’m always up for new challenges. I feel like when I get challenged – when someone comes in that’s really good, I actually ride better. It creates new motivation for me, you know, because obviously no one wants to lose in this sport. Whenever I do lose, I get pretty pissed, and it makes me want to come back, work harder, and make sure I have a strong rebound at the next race. So I’m looking forward to it. Obviously, the fans want to create a rivalry, we’re the closest in age out of the other competitors – so I think people are trying to build it up like the Ricky and James kind of thing, which is cool. The sport needs a rivalry, and I think it’ll be good for everyone.

Once I was on the start, when I was second behind Hunter, I knew he got third in the first one, so I’m just triedto enjoy that one. I mean, last lap we did a little bit of goon riding and just had some fun. Once I got the holeshot, that was my main goal for the weekend, just to try and get one, from there it was just kind of taking it as it came and enjoying it, because you don’t really get a lot of these. So it was cool just to ride out there. Hunter rode really well in the second one as well, so it was fun to cruise.

We get paid to win championship. It is great to get race wins and stuff, it helps out in winning the championship, but I’m always focused on trying to stay focused on taking it race by race to give myself the best chance of having a shot at it. I try to win as much as I can though, if you do that you have a great chance at winning it. We’ll see how it goes, we have Chase coming back, Eli, Hunter as well, we tied on points last year, so they’re all going to be good. I’m going to have to bring my A game and make sure I execute my starts at all three.