Jett came into the Nats cautiously optimistic. He was pretty transparent about his injury, but brushed aside many comments that it might affect his riding. Then at full pace, he's damn near crawling off the track after some motos. He then begins talking about how he's not training much during the week. Then he comes out and it hurts even MORE. Then we get to the finale, he apparently tweaks it, and is immediately in surgery...and passes on tons of cash with SMX.
1. If we could get a peek into his brain, I bet he's pretty damn nervous. He probably thought he could ride through the remaining pain, but assumed it would get better. It has not. Immediate surgery after season which you know was planned to max his healing before SX. But you KNOW he's quietly nervous with the questions of "What if....it doesn't ever get better".
2. if the moto gods injure him ala Ricky Johnson and he never returns to alien form...well...I'll be really angry for a long time.
Yeah — I think your read on the psychological side of this is probably more interesting than the injury itself.
The sequence you laid out is what makes it feel unsettling:
That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s thinking “my career might be over.” But I absolutely could see the quieter thought being:
“I thought this was something I could manage. What if I was wrong?”
And that’s a brutal place for a rider like Jett to be mentally. He’s spent essentially his entire professional career reinforcing the idea that his physical ceiling is different from everyone else’s. When something finally tells you, No, you can’t just ride through this one, that’s psychologically different from getting hurt in a crash.
The surgery timing is actually the part I’d find encouraging, though. If the goal is to maximize the time between surgery and SX, doing it immediately after the season is a very deliberate decision. He’s sacrificing SMX and whatever money/opportunity comes with it in exchange for the best possible recovery runway. That’s not someone ignoring the problem anymore.
And #2…
😂 YES.
If Jett comes back healthy and is merely “really good,” I’m going to need several business days to process that.
Because we’ve already seen the phenomenon you’re talking about with riders like Ricky Johnson: sometimes the body eventually says no, and the rider who comes back isn’t quite the same terrifying creature who left.
And that’s the nightmare scenario with Jett.
Not that he never wins again. Not that he isn’t elite.
It’s:
What if we never get Alien Jett back?
The guy who makes other 450 riders look like they’re operating on a different physics engine.
I’d be pissed too. Not rationally. Not medically. Spiritually.
But I’d put a big asterisk next to the fear right now: we don’t actually know that this injury is going to produce that outcome. His decision to stop, have the surgery, and bank as much recovery time as possible is probably the best thing he can do to prevent a lingering injury from becoming a career-defining problem.
The really interesting part will be how he comes back mentally. If he’s healthy but rides SX initially with even a tiny bit of hesitation—especially in situations where he’d previously just send it—that could tell us more than his lap times ever will.
And if he comes out at A1 and immediately looks like an absolute psychopath again?
Then we can all collectively exhale and say:
“Oh. The Moto Gods didn’t get him.”
I shattered my navicular riding 15+ years ago, took a year to walk normal and still to this day I cannot run long distances, play any sport like tennis or basketball without immense pain the next few days. Cannot squat properly due to the limited ankle mobility.
This is a serious injury and I give him credit for even lining up for outdoors. I was told fusion was the only fix but that would mean even less mobility in my foot/ankle so I've never done it but its pretty much immediate arthritis due to how those bones rub on each other, this is the worst nagging injury I've had by far. The worst part is is the more I use it the worse it is so I don't see how Jet is gonna train consistently without aggravating the injury. I hope they have some newer fixes for this injury or else I think we may see Jett drop off in speed, or increase in pain as the seasons wear on.
I was thinking your last paragraph just yesterday.
Ai slop
The Shop
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
Let's see what my slop machine spits out:
[retracted my tongue-in-cheek AI reply to the AI comment to cut down on the bullshit]
But seriously, you're supposed to use AI for efficiency in the workplace, not to post for you on a message board during your leisure time. People are doing this shit wrong, and that's why the movie Idiocracy was ahead of its time.
Can we fuck off with AI responses in here? What are we doing?
I have to consume enough AI bullshit at work. I don't come here to read AI bullshit. I come hear to read Vi, Vitard Intelligence.
I hope he doesn’t walk in pain for the next 8 years. Those injuries can be a real bitch. With a foot injury the fluid and cartilage that separates each little bone can kind of go away. There’s a lot going on in that part of the body. When you get a foot injury, unfortunately, you become a foot expert. I’m a broken heal survivor so now I’m an expert.
Questions?
I bunch of ai responses to ai responses… who the fuck wants to read robots having a conversation…
Just type the prompt here dont way for AI to turn it i to slop
Is that what’s happening? I don’t read the comments enough to notice
EXACTLY
Anyone that has raced moto a long time knows its the pain reflex in your brain that stops you from twisting the throttle as hard as it needs to be twisted!
I think looking at point #1 he probably thought back to his ACL injury. He came back earlier than expected and it got better and he was invincible. This is new territory for Jett
"He probably thought he could ride through the remaining pain, but assumed it would get better. It has not."
I had a similar injury to Jett 10 years ago. Surgery-hardware blah blah blah.
It hurts like hell right now after a full day of ladder work!
I got the hardware removed after about 7 years and it made a tremendous difference in the quality of my life. I was going to literally have my foot cut off because it never let up.. If you look into this injury it’s not an uncommon thing to do. The pain before hardware removal could only be described as what it’s like when you place a screw in a piece of hardwood without predrilling. Just a lot of pressure and pain 100% of the time.! Get that hardware out if possible.
Anyways. A lot less running and a lot more pool time and cycling is the way.
What I’m really worried about is the loads that supercross is going to put on it. A major over-jump or even a blitz thorough the whoops into the face of an obstacle is going to challenge it.
Noted, edited my reply to fuck off accordingly. lol
Don't even
Daren (Mr) Lawrence has said a few times that the surgeon says there is good clearance around the bone. So hopefully that means he won't have the same issues you describe. Sounds horrendous.
F**king MX injuries. I have 2 ruptured discs in my lower back to deal with amongst many other injuries over the years, so I feel ya!
@ML512 seriously... Ban this shit.
Fucking hell.
Pit Row
Good points. I'm wondering if this next procedure was already planned, but it's just being bumped up now? Maybe scar tissue or hardware removal. I'm hoping it's not another "fix." He was doing so damn well all year; he doesn't deserve another setback.
I know nothing of course, but I honestly think he was busting out practice laps like a boss and thought he was home free and that remaining "pain" would sort itself out this summer. Then he got kicked in the teeth with race-pace and he tweaked it here and there and had an up/down summer. This new surgery seems like its URGENT, which means fingers are crossed in his camp.
Computer, write a smart reply to this forum post for me... What is even the point?
From Racer X
Darren, so, the ankle, we've seen it like he's tweaked it and it's bugged him before. Is this anything to worry about for SMX?
I really hope he's just broken the scar tissue off some more. And that's what the surgeon said when we went and seen him in the big break, you know, like, “How are we going? Are we doing damage?” He says, “No, you're not doing damage. It's sort of kind of a blessing because it can knock scar tissue off.” But he said, “As a surgeon would I say, yeah, keep on riding your motorcycle? I'd be saying no. Because of risk of hurting it again.” But he said, “You're doing a great job at looking after it all. The gap around the bone is really, really good, symmetrical. The bone is solid. You're just going to have to go through pain and it won't start to improve until eight months.” And that's when we found that two weeks off was around about the eight-week mark. And it really did start to improve. But as it improves and you get a little more motion, then obviously typical an athlete just pushes a little more and therefore you start to hurt it again. So, I'd say Jett’s probably his own worst enemy because he wants to win. He wants to succeed. You just keep pushing it to the next level, you know?
He was riding injured... dude almost had a "Chadapult" in moto 2....
New response in the spirit of the good ol’ days of “STFU NOOB!”…
Fuck you & your AI response, too!
I really am afraid we may have seen the last of Jett "Alien" Mode, I hope not. It was amazing watching him at his best, and even this summer at times. If he heals enough or in time for this year's Anaheim 1, he will have missed the better part of two years of SX. Perhaps racing aside, I hope the young man doesn't go through life with a limp and pain and can run with his kids and grandkids in the future. This past year in racing was a tipping point for some riders more so than in the past it seems, some going up others down. I am not so sure we haven't seen the last of Jett being a dominant rider.
That insight from Dazzy is probably the most important point about the state of Jett’s ankle. The bone spacing being symmetrical around the talus and ankle mortise is going to be the biggest determinant of on going issues. If that part of the bone healing is symmetrical now it’s about soft tissue healing and correction and possible hardware removal in the talus. Ligaments, tendons, nerves and scar tissue are all able to be addressed with surgery and serious PT but it’s will take another year at least for him to start feeling like himself or not thinking about it as much. He will probably get arthritis later in life just due to the fact the articular surface of the talus was broken and the cartilage was damaged and that can’t be repaired but there is a bunch of new treatments available that can delay the onset. His path to recovery will be difficult that’s for sure.
I understand that the decision to race at this level involves a host of considerations—the rider is competing at the highest global level, not to mention the financial aspect. However, I think they are making a serious mistake by not focusing solely on a full recovery. Whether it’s a wrist injury or, in this case, a foot injury, it can completely ruin his quality of life—not just a part of his career !
Jett is young and incredibly talented—truly one of a kind. He should have hit the pause button and come back at 100%. I think they’re poorly advised, surrounded by people who are only thinking about the short term.
I hope this ankle injury does not do what Ricky Johnson's Wrist injury did to his career, Ricky would have been much higher in the record books.
exactly the analogy I made in the original post. A stupid accident hurt his wrist and he was never the same. I will forever shake my fist at the moto gods should this happen. We will all be robbed of what could be a career that unseats the GOAT.
I thought it was the fear reflex!
Post a reply to: Jett's ankle/mindset...