The Moment: Coulda Shoulda

There seemed to be some sort of irony as Tomac, who raced for Kawasaki from 2016-2021, repassed Anderson on his ailing bike. There were several races over the years when smoke could be seen flowing from Tomac’s KX450s, too, and that smoke was usually traced back to the clutch. It never really slowed him in the races, though. In this case, Anderson’s situation looked much worse. This was not the same problem Tomac used to have.

“Oh, yeah. I saw smoke,” said Tomac in the post-race press conference. “I didn’t know what was going on, whatever it was. I actually figured it was a radiator, but I don't know what happened. I saw it smoking there, like a lap or so, and then he started slowing down. So yeah, I saw it.”

The radiator guess turned out to be true—we hear it was either the radiator cap came loose, or possibly there was just a problem with the radiator itself. That’s a rare problem to have, but Anderson did rage from ninth to second, so maybe he took on some damage somewhere. Anderson could be seen bumping into Dean Wilson on the first lap, and then knocked Ken Roczen down. Neither impact was anywhere near the radiator area of his bike (Roczen collided with the rear of Anderson’s bike). However, Kawasaki’s post-race PR mentioned Anderson making the move for third, which would trace it to his pass on Roczen. It goes without saying that any kind of impact can lead to the unexpected.

“However, contact with another rider while making the pass for third would result in radiator damage for Anderson and ultimately require him to settle for an eighth-place finish,” read the team release.

It looked like Anderson’s race might be over, but he must have realized the bike was going to make it, and he was eventually able to start jumping jumps again and log some more decent lap times. He salvaged ninth, and then moved to eighth after Justin Barcia was penalized for riding fast along the side of the whoops.

When you see a bike smoking and assume a mechanical DNF is en route, the mind immediately goes to a rider losing the full 26 points available in a given race. Anderson took eighth and scored 15 points. Had he finished second, he would have scored 23 points. The net impact: eight points. That’s not nothing, but it’s not as catastrophic as 26 points. Also, while Anderson could be sitting on a large points lead right now if not for the round-one knockdown and round-three mechanical, he sits just five points back of series leader Tomac. If he keeps going this fast, he could be holding the red plate by the end of next week.

It could have been a lot worse.