“Obviously, my expectation is to go out there and fight for as many wins as I can and try to get a championship, too,” said Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Eli Tomac before the season-opening round of Monster Energy AMA Supercross in January. Now, almost four months later, he has five main event wins but unfortunately sits 18 points behind championship leader Red Bull KTM’s Cooper Webb. Tomac has finishes of 1-4-3-4-1-1 in the last six rounds, but with only two rounds remaining his time is running out.
We caught up with Tomac recently to talk about his season.
Racer X: Eli, I’ve noticed in the past couple of weeks you’ve mentioned in the motocross media that to get this sport right, and to get this sport right at your level, takes a very big window and that window is often times quite small. Can you elaborate on that?
Eli Tomac: Yeah, for sure. When I’m talking about that window, I’m talking about track conditions and how you’re feeling comfortable in those conditions. The window is a combination of both, riding and track conditions.
And the sport of supercross is so much about the rider on the bike with his feet and hands and body weight controlling and optimizing, correct?It is. And to be winning, you have to have all that together, you know? That’s what’s cool about supercross, it’s a lot about the rider, but at the same time, to be at the top you do have to be on it with your motorcycle as well. So it has got to be a total package.Yeah, in this modern era all you have to do is look at the factory teams in supercross. These factory teams have a lot of employs put into the team, as well as money and time. That’s a serious race effort, huh?
Yeah, that’s right. Now, we try to do what we can with data and try and translate that to the riding. Sometimes that doesn’t always translate to what I feel on the bike as a rider, but we always need to gather as much data as we can and apply it on race day.At the somewhat recent Indianapolis, Seattle, and Houston rounds of the series, you went 4-3-4, respectively. However, you convincingly won the last two rounds at Nashville and Denver. Thoughts on your late season surge?
Yeah, so before those two races I was just struggling with overall comfort. It was a little bit of both me being comfortable on my motorcycle and getting through the full 20 minutes of a main event. I feel like we, as a team, made some improvements and I made some improvements and it all sort of just comes together. I was just kind of searching throughout the season and these last two race wins have been in the right spot and come in the right way. Before it seemed like everything had to be in the right position for me to go out there and get it done. I’m hoping now that we’ve figured out a few thingsYeah, a supercross main event basically gives you 20 minutes to work with from the drop of the gate to the checkered flag. Not a lot of time to work with, huh?
Yeah, that’s right. You can only do so much until you race. I mean everybody says it, but it’s the truth: You don’t really know where you are at until you go racing. Yeah, I just felt like at the beginning of the season that I was a little behind in that way.
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