Red Bull KTM’s Cooper Webb snagged his second win of 2020 and his ninth career premier class win on Wednesday night when he held off a late charge from Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Eli Tomac. Both riders had to put late passes on Rockstar Energy Husqvarna’s Zach Osborne who led 20 of the 27 laps and held on for the final spot on the podium.
All three riders spoke with the media in a Zoom press conference call after the race, hosted by NBC Sports’ Daniel Blair.
Daniel Blair: Congratulations, guys. 450 division, I’ll start with you, Zach. Since we’ve been in Salt Lake City, it looks like you’ve been finding your groove. Even Sunday’s race wasn’t a podium ride, but it was a solid ride. You charged the whole way through. This one, obviously getting out front made a huge difference for you. Just kind of take us through that main event, the early laps, what it felt like to be up front again. I know it’s been a while. And then just battling late for a win here at round 12.
Eli, [you] didn’t get the win at this one, but from a points perspective, it was a big win; opened up that points lead into double digits now. Did you leave the race going, “I would have liked to have won,” or are you looking big picture a little bit now as we’re getting closer to the end and look at the points and go, “this was a big win for me?”
Cooper, congratulations on the win. Late in that race, I can’t help but think about you and Zach and, I’m assuming, the hours you guys have ridden together and battled together at the practice track. Was there somewhat of a comfort in that knowing that you were going up with someone that you somewhat know? You know their riding tendencies, racing tendencies? It looked like late there it was a one-on-one kind of thing. Was that somewhat of a comfort for you just knowing that it was Zach and maybe not being either Eli or Kenny, but it was someone that you ride with and train with?
Cooper, what was your routine between the races? People are wondering about the altitude and the short break. Anything you did differently? Did you feel differently racing on a Wednesday?
Same for you, Zach. Did the elevation or the time in-between feel weird at all, or was it pretty good?
Same for you, Eli. Did you ride between races, or will you ride between this with a little longer break between here and Sunday?
Cooper, my biggest question for you after the win last night is do you feel like the layoff due to COVID was probably the best thing that could have happened for you after Dallas?
Eli, Sunday it shows rain and 50. It’s a big difference between sunny, dusty and 80’s plus out here. How are you preparing for that, especially when you need to protect what you’ve built?
Eli, even earlier this year and in the past you’ve had issues when you’ve been in bad positions early in the race, but lately you’ve seemed a lot more patient and a lot more kind of methodical in the beginning on finding the pace. You’ve even been passed in both these races by Cooper and Kenny in the last one, and you’ve come back to get to the front. Is that something you’ve been working on to try to close this first title out?
If you prefer to watch the virtual press conference, you can view it below:
Zach, you Husky’s were really fast this Wednesday from the jump. One, two, three in free practice. I think one, two, three, four in the first qualifying practice. Did you guys find something early this week? Or were you guys working together on it? You guys had a lot of speed right out of the gate.
You weren’t doing the triple on in the main and that was costing you a little bit of time. I saw you battling with Tomac there earlier, and actually doing well doing the double-single there. Was that in the back of your mind? Why didn’t you pull the trigger in the main?
Zach and Cooper, altitude has kind of been the theme of this race. A lot of guys are really struggling. We expected Eli to be good. He lives at a high altitude. What did you guys do? Has either of you got a therapeutic exemption for oxygen or anything?
Webb: I’m not educated enough on altitude. I haven’t really changed anything I’ve been doing. We were in Florida doing a lot of laps and it was super-hot. It seemed like me and Zacho were really pushing each other hard to kind of duplicate that race day vibe. So, I’ve just been doing my normal thing, training like normal. You definitely notice it, but I think it’s something that you just kind of push through and know that it’s going to affect you a little bit.
Cooper, what was it like for you going back to the same stadium but this time at night and a different track layout? How much different was it for you?
Webb: It was definitely quite a change in schedule from being early, early, to the latest one I’ve ever raced. It was definitely different than what we’re used to, like we’ve all said multiple times. But it was cool. It felt comfortable. How everything went, it seemed like this time around I felt like with the mechanics and the routine was a bit more easy just because everyone kind of knew what to expect. The track was more moisture this time. Definitely more technical layout and stuff like that. I thought it was cool. I was stoked that they changed the track obviously entirely, but it was quite a bit different entirely from last Sunday. They were able to do that in two days, which was pretty impressive. I thought they might maybe leave the same layout or just change a few sections here and there, but it was cool that they did a full-on rebuild.
What has been the reaction from your sponsors and what they are doing to help you guys bridge those financial gaps that your teams may be seeing now due to the fact that you guys are missing out on a lot of merchandise sales, on a lot of the travel pieces when you guys come to places like Quest Field or Century Link Field which has a massive amount of people that attend?
Webb: It definitely is unique. It’s cool when we go to different stadiums and you kind of get to see the different fans and the different styles of the city and stuff like that. Yeah in our sport merchandise, we’re kind of held by the gonads a little bit. Not much we can do there. It definitely stinks not going to all these multiple venues. But at the same time, it’s just temporary and get back to normality and hopefully get some new fans going and get the pay schedule back on.
Eli, the fact that there’s no fans in the pits, there’s no interaction, no autograph signing and everything, is it easier for you to focus just on racing?
Cooper, one of the most underrated parts of your game, I think, is your ability to chess match, that you and someone else are similar speeds that last five laps. You have the lead and you tend to always come out on top in those. I can’t remember the last time you got passed late in a race when you’re battling for a position. Was your pass on Zacho with, I think, three minutes left, was that part of the chess match because you saw Eli coming, or was it just an opportunity thing?
Is that something you’ve always been good at, that figuring out your situation, keeping people behind, closing the races? Is that something you can even work on?