Eli Tomac did it. The finale of Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship presented a final round showdown between Tomac and Chase Sexton, and they battled hard in the first moto with the title on the line. Tomac was able to make the pass on Sexton to grab the first moto win. Then the pressure came back for moto two when Tomac found himself shuffled in the pack.
After the race, we talked to the now four-time 450 Pro Motocross Champion about how it all unfolded.
First of all thank you for putting on such a great show all season. You two even started 1-2 in the first moto, which was everything we wanted, although I’m sure you wished you had a 50-point lead coming in. This was gnarly, man.
It was gnarly. The more I think of it, though, coming in here with a 1 point lead…well, it’s easy to say now. But, sleeping last night, I was fine! I wasn’t rolling around in bed, I wasn’t over thinking it. Because with 1 point, you just have to execute. Straight up you have to go be the best guy. It forced you to be the best guy. Like, it’s hard when you have maybe 10 points and you’re like “I can’t risk it too much.” So, same thing went down today. We were glued together and thankfully I was the guy who came out on top.
We even had you on our pre show yesterday. You looked like that! You looked like you were enjoying yourself. You have to be proud of yourself. You never know how you’re going to feel in that moment, but you have to be proud that you were able to stay that cool under pressure.
Yeah, but like I said, I think it was because of that situation. I’ve won them before, but knowing I had to go out and ride at 100 percent. There was no 90 percenting today. There was none of that!
How much of that first moto was strategy? Where you waiting? Saving energy because of the heat? Or was it all out attack the whole time?
Um, I mean, I would like to think it was all out, but I wasn’t going absolutely out of my mind up until about halfway. Then I saw the lappers coming again and honestly that is a good time to make a push on guys. It’s worked at least with me and Chase this year. That’s what happened is he got a little bit balled up with lappers and I got closer to him, then I made the attack in those rollers. There was some strategy there, but to be honest, I wasn’t neccesarily catching him before that. It was tough.
So you were going hard and he was holding you.
Yeah.
Oh, so do the nerves creep in at that point?
I was like, “Shoot, I might get beat…but at least we have the second moto, too.” But, didn’t happen.
Moto two, just a bad start? It got a little tense there for a bit?
Yeah, average start and then I was actually worse in turn three. I got passed by like three guys dropping off of that little shelf and that was what really did me in. So I was like fifth, and I went back to whatever it was, like seventh or something. That was the bad part, I was too cautious in turn three, and then I was like “Uh oh” when I saw Jason out in front, because he is one of the guys that can run away. Then I saw Chase in front of me and I was like “This is not good.” So, I was kind of freaking out, then Chase made the mistake and I was obviously able to get ahead of him there and then I went up to Jason. But before all that I was like, “I’ve got a lot of work for me cut out right now.”
Yeah and unfortunately in that situation, this field is still pretty tough right now. A lot of times you get down to the final race like this and guys are just cruising. But these guys will fight you.
Yeah, and honestly I was having flashbacks of Budds Creek moto two. I was like “Dude, if I get stuck behind these guys again…” I was only able to get to fifth in Budds Creek moto two. I think it was fifth. It can easily happen, these guys are good enough. So yeah, I had to go out there and pin it man, in moto two.
I asked you a dumb question yesterday. I said, “Would it be cool to check this box in your career, to win a winner-take-all finale like this?” Now yesterday you said you would rather just have a huge points lead and not have to go through this! But now that you’ve done it, is it kind of nice to have that thing hanging on your wall, to say “I had to do this one in the final round”?
Yeah! It’s super cool that way! Like you said, there’s nothing like it. But, with all that being said, I’m telling you this was better for me mentally and the way the nerves were than it being a 10 point lead. I can say that now but I swear it was easier than having a little cushion.
One more thing. You switched to Yamaha and when we first heard it, we were all like ,“Wow that’s crazy.” You ended up winning both titles for the first time in your career, and you said it was also the most fun season you’ve ever had?
Yeah, it was. I can say that now because I won both, but we got it figured out in supercross and we got it figured out in motocross. It was my best 450 season and I loved the people that surrounded me and made it a team.
