Hunter Lawrence picked a track his team expected to give him trouble and won it anyway. At the Washougal MX National on July 28, Lawrence went 2-1 for his fifth 450MX overall of the 2026 AMA Pro Motocross season, pushing his championship lead over brother Jett to a season-high 12 points with three rounds remaining.
Moto 1 was orderly by Lawrence family standards. Jett grabbed the lead off the start, Hunter moved from fourth to second on the opening lap, and the two Australians pulled clear of Jorge Prado and the rest of the field. They held those positions to the flag, with Jett banking his seventh moto win of the season and Hunter sitting second.
Moto 2 was less tidy. Jett took the holeshot on his CRF450RWE but Hunter passed him on lap one and built a lead. A brief off-circuit excursion earned Jett a one-position penalty for accelerating back onto the track, then a small jump-face crash opened the door wider. He recovered, mounted a genuine late charge, and closed to within 1.7 seconds at the checkered flag. Not enough. Hunter’s 2-1 beat Jett’s 1-2 on points, giving Hunter the overall. Haiden Deegan was third overall, Prado fourth.
Jett sits second in the standings at 355 points, 57 clear of third-place Haiden Deegan. The gap between the brothers is tight enough that neither can afford a bad day at Unadilla, the next round. Hunter has won five of eight overalls this season; Jett has claimed seven individual moto victories. The speed is there on both sides of the pit. Hunter just keeps converting it into overalls at a slightly higher rate.
Lawrence joins a notable list of 450-class winners at Washougal that includes Johnny O’Mara, Jeremy McGrath, Ricky Carmichael, Kevin Windham, Chase Sexton, and Jett Lawrence himself. The track has not historically suited Hunter, which made the 2-1 performance notable enough that he flagged the win specifically: “This weekend was actually sick compared to how Washougal has been every other year for me.”
In the 250 class, Chance Hymas delivered the most complete weekend of his 2026 season. Starting outside the top five in moto 1, the Idaho native worked up to third and held it. Moto 2 was cleaner: he started inside the top three, briefly moved to second before Cole Davies reclaimed that spot, and held off pressure from Carson Mumford to the flag. A 3-3 finish gave him third overall and his first dual-moto-podium weekend of the year, moving him up two spots to fifth in the 250 standings with 230 points. Davies won the 250 overall, with Ryder DiFrancesco second.
Hymas credited recent progress to a new engine and fuel injection technician, Wim Van Hoof, who joined the team with experience from European competition. “With Wim coming over, we’ve been making really good progress with the bike the last few rounds, and today it really showed,” Hymas said. His best qualifying result of the season, fifth in 250 combined, backed the trend.
AMA Pro Motocross now heads into its second two-week break before round 9 at Unadilla MX in New York. Hunter Lawrence leads at 367 points. The math gets simpler with each round he converts.
