The midpoint of the 2022 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship has come and gone as the Daytona Supercross is now behind us. There were many talking points from Daytona on Saturday night, and as such, we fired off questions to long-time professional racer Jason Thomas to get his thoughts on it all.
If Cooper Webb doesn't get held up by Shane McElrath, does he win it?
I think it’s 50/50. On one hand, Cooper Webb is one of the craftiest late-race competitors the sport has ever seen. His ability to anticipate three or four moves ahead is uncanny and has served him well in dozens of scenarios. The other side of this coin is the relentless aggressor that is Eli Tomac. Not many racers have been able to hold off a surging Tomac, especially at Daytona. Both riders would have been utilizing their greatest strengths and I feel like the real loser was all of us for not getting to see it.
Was McElrath majorly wrong here or is this just part of racing?
McElrath was trying to get out of the way. He was trying to do the right thing, he just got it wrong. The tough part is that he can’t see where Webb was angling. Had he known Webb was going to go for the extreme inside, he could have positioned himself in the middle to stay out of harm’s way. Many people often advise to just stay in your line and not do anything out of the norm and this is why. When McElrath made a decisive move to get out of the line, he had a 50/50 shot of going the wrong way. Good intentions don’t always lead to a good end result, though.
Take us through the Malcolm Stewart and Jason Anderson situation.
In a vacuum, I don’t think anything would have really escalated. Unfortunately, racing is not in a vacuum and people remember previous altercations. Mookie went into Daytona “owing” Jason Anderson some payback. That contact at Arlington that left Mookie on the ground was not water under the bridge. It was still a sensitive spot that only need a slight breeze to aggravate, let alone solid contact from a KX450. So, as they entered the second turn, Mookie turned down pretty abruptly, catching both Tomac and Jason Anderson off guard. Anderson had drawn a pretty aggressive line, it should be mentioned, but still wasn’t planning on the hard contact that occurred. When Mookie saw Anderson emerge as the aggressor from yet another incident, he simply had enough. He nearly traveled back in time as he rip-roared along the side of the track and made a beeline for the green #21. Mookie only needed a nudge to seek revenge and he got plenty more.
Daytona appears "basic" as supercross tracks go, because the race usually isn't won and lost due to jumping or not jumping a certain rhythm. Explain where riders can go right and wrong here.
Daytona’s layout is always on the basic side. The technical aspect develops more from track deterioration than initial layout. It gets rough, rutty, and inconsistent. A basic rhythm section becomes incredibly difficult by the end of the night due to softer dirt and uneven transitions. Time is gained in the ability to consistently execute these sections and get in and out of the sandy corners. Where being able to jump a difficult quad could be the key to winning a race like Glendale, being able to put in perfect laps and corner cleanly matters much more at Daytona. Never does the saying “jumps for show, corners for dough” mean more than it does at this race.
Same topic: Before the riders went under the bridge, there was a small jump with a gigantic rut going up the face. Talk about negotiating that section, doing a turning double while dragging pegs.
That double was super small but also very challenging. The inside line was the preferred one, of course, but I also saw riders like Cooper Webb abandoning that inside for a more predictable run just a few feet to the right. As the track gets nearly intolerable, I always found it very important to keep an open mind. Moving five feet to the right is a hassle and not as fast in theory but being able to carry speed through that lesser line when the inside line has completely gone away can end up being quicker. Many riders develop tunnel vision in the main event, keeping them in a line that isn’t working anymore. That inside rut was this exact situation.
Tomac talked about being sand blasted in corners and not even being able to see the rut at times. Are you flying blind and going on memory for a moment in those sections?
It’s a huge issue of trust and muscle memory. Riders like Eli Tomac are reacting to what the bike is telling them almost as much as what their eyes are telling them. It’s not fun when you can’t see and very easy to crash but at any mud race, or really any Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship race of the year, there will be moments when you simply can’t see where you are going. Rolling out of the throttle isn’t an option in the Daytona beach sand so you just rely on instinct and hope it pans out.
Talk about the experience of watching Cameron McAdoo and RJ Hampshire battle for a podium position.
They both want it so badly, it’s hard to fault them for pushing the edge. Their sendy-ness is borne from desire and want-to. I am always going to cheer for that. I also wonder if it’s not their worst enemy at times, also. RJ crashes nearly every weekend and often they are big ones. That doesn’t work in the long term. McAdoo has seemed to smooth out a bit from last year’s chaos so I will just focus on RJ’s issues for now. If RJ can fix the crashing, he’s a weekly podium threat. If he doesn’t, he will either continue to live in this roller coaster result trend or worse, end up injured.
