Jason Lawrence Set For Motocross Return
| February 7, 2013
Former motocross star Jason Lawrence says he will return to racing in 2013. Photography By: Frankie Garcia
It now appears as though much-troubled motocrosser Jason Lawrence will make a return to racing in the 2013 AMA Pro Motocross National Championship with the talented 25-year-old former 250 Supercross West Champion drawing plenty of attention yesterday at Pala Raceway in Southern California where he was doing a Utopia Optics photo shoot.
Lawrence has been threatening to make a return to racing for the past two years, but this time the threat sounds like a promise as Utopia and Arma Energy will support his comeback. Lawrence has been riding at his grandparents’ property in Florida to get ready for his return, but is now in Southern California and staying with friend and fellow racer Josh Hansen. He’s scheduled to return to Florida shortly.
Lawrence was sentenced to 365 days in the Southwest Detention Center in Murrieta, California, on September 8, 2009 with the then 22 year old charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, one count of battery with serious bodily injury, and one count of mayhem.
Lawrence was sentenced in Riverside County, California, just 46 days after finishing third in the AMA National Motocross round in Washougal. Lawrence also very nearly won the Daytona Supercross in March of 2009 before fading to a second-place finish.
The 2009 season was littered with trouble for Lawrence with the AMA penalizing him for his on-track actions at the Jacksonville round of the 2009 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series after on-track altercations between himself and Broc Hepler. Since he was already on probation for an earlier incident, Lawrence was suspended from competition for the rest of the 2009 AMA Supercross Series.
Lawrence was put on probation after being arrested for disorderly conduct at the Red Bud Motocross National on July 4, 2008 after getting involved in a fight. Three weeks earlier, at Freestone Country Raceway in Texas, Lawrence rolled his mechanic’s rental car in the parking lot. Lawrence was put on probation by the AMA for the rental car incident and was given a $25,000 suspended fine that the AMA said would be dropped if Lawrence stayed clean for the rest of the year.
Lawrence rode for the Yamaha of Troy team at the time.
