Main image courtesy of Christophe Desmet.
Night one here in Paris, France for the annual Paris SX is over and the packed Le Defense Arena saw a pretty good night of racing. Monster Energy Yamaha/Star Racing’s Eli Tomac took the win with some great riding and 1-2-1 finishes in the three main events. Tomac’s off-season is shaping up a lot like his other races in 2022, with him on top of the box.
But first, more about the race. The track here in Paris is one of the tougher ones in recent memory with big whoops and some rhythms that only a few of the top riders can do. The format is a SuperPole that starts off the night which sets the gate pick for the first of three main events. The mains themselves were eight minutes, 10 minutes, and 12 minutes plus a lap and scoring was done with the Olympic scoring format. Oh, and all six main events count towards the overall for the prestigious King of Paris title that will be crowned tomorrow afternoon.
The lineup is deep, and it includes Tomac, Justin Brayton, Ken Roczen, Red Bull KTM teammates Cooper Webb and Marvin Musquin, along with French heroes like Cedric Soubeyras and Gregory Aranda. Add in American privateer riders like Kevin Moranz and Alex Ray and this is one of the better line ups in recent years at this race.
Despite being 38 and being officially retired in all USA racing, it was Honda Genuine Parts Honda’s Justin Brayton that topped practice times. After him came Musquin, Roczen on his Genuine Honda Parts CRF450, and then Tomac, but all were pretty close.
In the SuperPole it was, who else, Ken Roczen taking the top time and securing that gate pick for the first main event. In that short main event, it was Tomac grabbing the holeshot with Brayton and Roczen in tow. With the two KTM teammates after that, everything was set for an epic main.
Brayton and Roczen’s whoop speed was very impressive but Tomac held off both riders to take the win in the shortest main of the night. Brayton got close a couple of times but could never make the push he needed. The two KTM riders, Musquin and Webb, looked to be off the pace in the whoops and lost touch with the top three riders.
Second main event it was again Tomac with the start and disaster struck Brayton as he got tangled up with Roczen and Musquin in the first turn and went down. His clutch was bent out of a useful reach and he was dead last. He was able to get up to seventh but that’s a tough deal to win the King title for sure. Roczen got hot about three laps into the main and came from about fifth to challenge Tomac for the lead. He used his whoop speed to pull up alongside Tomac after them and stuffed it by the #3. It was an impressive ride for the 94 as he actually pulled out a bit of a gap on the Yamaha rider. Webb finished third, some 20 seconds back of the winner. Musquin uncharacteristically went down twice and could only get a 10th.
In the third and final main event, it was Roczen who picked the inside gate (he had passed it up for the first main and Tomac started there, grabbing both holeshots from that gate) but couldn’t make it work like his rival as Tomac gated much better than the Honda rider and closed him off. From there it was all Tomac’s opportunity to take the win, but again Roczen, further back then he was in Main #2, caught Tomac and got within a second of the Yamaha rider. A bobble on the last lap in the whoops made it way more uncomfortable than Tomac would’ve liked it to be, that’s for sure, but Tomac hung on to take the win.
Brayton caught Musquin for third but lappers ultimately made JB lose some time and Marvin had his best race of the night for his hometown fans. Webb was up there early but dropped back to fifth by the time the checkers flew.
There was an SX2 class and Bud Racing’s Chris Blose swept all three mains with relative ease. Blose’s three races looked like this: get a second place start behind Yannis Irsuti, make the pass on Irsuti right away (ok, it took him a lap or two in Main #3) and then check out. In fact, Honda’s Jace Owen sort of followed that program with top five starts and work into second behind Blose. Irsuti did get a second in the first main event and third overall. Cullin Park had a very nice third main event and got up to third before tipping over late in that one.
Although Tomac won two of the three mains, Roczen catching him from a ways back in the third race and catching and passing him in main two seems to indicate that we’re in for some good racing tomorrow afternoon. Stay tuned for more on that right here and on Racer X social media.
