‘It was a wrong place, wrong time situation’ – Barcia

Justin Barcia and Jett Lawrence explain their perspectives of the collision in St. Louis.

Image: Octopi Media.

In the final race of the Triple Crown at St. Louis, Justin Barcia and Jett Lawrence came together in a big collision that saw Jett Lawrence end up down on the ground for some time. Following the race, Barcia immediately went up to Jett to apologize, and has now further commented on this situation and what happened from his perspective.

It all happened just as the second lap got underway and the field was tightly bunched together. Jett Lawrence was trying to pivot early out of a berm to get alongside his brother Hunter Lawrence when suddenly he met Barcia at the bottom of the berm. Barcia was going defensive on the inside route into the berm as he had Vince Friese trying to get underneath him to make a pass and the contrasting lines of corner entry and corner exit resulted in a violent collision between Barcia and Jett Lawrence.

“Anyone who knows dirt bikes knows that was a racing incident. Not intentional by any means. It was such a bummer,” said Barcia in a video on Instagram. “Early on in the laps, you’re just racing hard, and I came in super-hot, Jett cut down and it was a wrong place, wrong time situation. I spoke to Jett after the race. He completely understood what happened. He knew I didn’t do that intentionally. But I felt like I wanted to go over to the Honda truck and talk to the whole crew and everyone was obviously really upset. On our crew, it was just a bummer. It took us out of the race so that was disappointing, but everyone was understanding and knew it wasn’t intentional. That’s not my style. I’m glad we can move on from this. Jett is okay and healthy. I’m okay and healthy. Luckily Jett is a grown man and a great racer and understood the situation and we can put it beside us and go racing in a couple of weeks.”

As mentioned, Barcia immediately came up to Lawrence after the race to apologize and the two talked for about 20 seconds on track before Jett Lawrence gave him a thumbs up. Honda HRC team manager Lars Lindstrom was none too happy and was seen speaking with AMA officials’ post-race about the situation.

Fortunately, it does appear Jett Lawrence avoided any serious injury. He was examined at the track, and it was determined nothing was broken but rather he was just very sore and bruised. Thanks to the Triple Crown format, Lawrence salvaged an eighth-place result on the night and still leads the 450SX standings by eight points.

“It’s just a sucky situation,” explained Lawrence. “I just cut down under Hunter, and obviously Barcia was defending his line from someone else on the inside of him—just wrong place, wrong time. He kind of hit my arm pretty good; I got a gnarly Charlie horse. He hit some nerve in my arm, where I kind of lost feeling and strength in my hands. That’s why I was trying to get up and get going early, but I physically couldn’t—I had no strength. It is what it is. Thankfully we had a bit of a buffer on second. We’ve got a break, we’ll come back stronger. We’ve got five races to go.”

Fortunately for Lawrence, the series has a weekend off before returning to action on April 13^th in Foxborough, Massachusetts.