When two of the best supercross riders in the world go toe-to-toe for an entire 20-minute-plus-one-lap main event, it’s the small things that end up counting. At the 2023 Daytona Supercross, Eli Tomac would end up winning by just 1.7 seconds over Cooper Webb, which is about the farthest apart the two competitors got throughout the main event. It wasn’t exactly your knock down-drag out battle of the ages between the two, but it did perhaps highlight a crescendo in an ever shifting Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship this year.
It was Tomac’s fifth win of the season to Webb’s two. Whoever won the main event would have left with the red plate as Webb would have been up by one with Tomac now instead being up by five. This title fight doesn’t just feature these two protagonists, as Honda HRC’s Chase Sexton still sits just 10 points back of Tomac, but Tomac and Webb are the two big dogs in this fight with 70 total wins between them and four 450SX championships. It really was a battle of the titans.
The script of the main event ultimately flipped on the eighth lap of the race which went 17 laps. Oddly enough, Daytona was the eighth round of this 17 round championship. Cooper Webb had led from the start after he swooped around Tomac into the lead in the second corner. Tomac tailed him from there and made a few runs at Webb along the way, including a close incident where the two banged bars into the off-camber which nearly sent Tomac off the track. But when the duo landed off the finish line jump on the eighth lap within feet of each other, everything stopped for a moment. As Webb chopped the throttle to sit into a small pocket that the riders then doubled over and then tripled into a rhythm section, his Red Bull KTM simply barked back at him with no forward momentum. Webb was in neutral. He quickly corrected it with a click down into first gear but not before Tomac had tripled over top of him into the lead.
“It was just a thing where I believe he hit a false neutral, and I was able to slide on by and do the normal triple line,” said Tomac. “There wasn’t a whole lot of thought to it. I just happened to be just to the right side of him, so I was able to slide right by.”
Was it false neutral? Most likely yes. Webb had been in gear off the finish line jump as he powered from the landing of the finish into that rhythm section. Unless he had clicked down into the rhythm to remain at a higher RPM, it was only when he chopped the throttle did the bike find neutral. It happens. From the local track to the highest level of racing, false neutral is something all riders are familiar with. But the timing of it happening while battling for the lead in a 450SX main event is nearly unthinkable.
Webb was quick to shake it off and get back on Tomac’s rear fender, but the usually crafty Webb couldn’t quite crack the DayTomac code.
“It was obviously a gnarly track, but then you’re also trying to find the fast lines. They change easily,” said Webb. “I made that mistake. Somehow clicked neutral and he got by me. But I tucked right in behind him and I felt like I stayed right there on him, just really hoping for a mistake.”
That mistake never came, and Eli Tomac would go on to win his seventh Daytona Supercross while Webb is still looking for his first. Perhaps Tomac finds his way through regardless at some point as he was hounding Webb for the lead and this all wouldn’t matter anyway, but what if Webb was able to hold on?
The current immeasurable part of Webb hitting neutral is how that will impact this incredible title fight. Three riders were separated by five points going into Daytona, the closest it has ever been, and it’s still pretty darn close! Round 9 of the championship is up next in Indianapolis this weekend and nine rounds still remain in this title fight. Tomac beating Webb at Daytona instead of Webb beating Tomac amounts to a six-point swing in the championship. The difference between Webb being up one instead of Tomac being up five. Titles have been won and lost by fewer points.
Really what this is all about is that Daytona was finally the first true full-race showdown we got to see between Tomac and Webb this year. They finished 1-2 at the first two rounds but it never was quite as close as Daytona. And since then, they’ve either caught and passed each other and moved on, or not been in the battle with each other as Sexton or a number of other guys have been in the mix. When you have two competitors who both have a shot to win and are that close together for an entire main event, the loser in the battle will feel its an opportunity missed while the winner comes out the other side knowing the importance. How important was that Daytona win for Eli Tomac? We’ll know the answer by mid-May.
