It was Loretta Lynn’s Ranch, and the 2005 AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch. In the coveted 85cc (12-13) Modified class, the title would come down to the final moto, with Justin Barcia facing Eli Tomac. In the final moto of the three-race format, Barcia came out on top, and his scored 3-1-1 finishes bested Tomac’s 2-2-2 to claim the title.
Now bordering on 20 years beyond, as thirty-something husbands and dads, Barcia and Tomac are still racing each other. Saturday night at Glendale the saga continued, with Tomac leading the final race of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Triple Crown format, and Barcia giving chase. Tomac is the best rider of his generation, with the wins and titles to show for it, but Barcia is persistent and experiencing a nice surge this season. Tomac is a legend in our time, Barcia never gives up or gives or gives in. So, he pushed Eli with all he had, the final margin of victory sitting at 2.3 seconds.
These two have been rivals for a long time, and there have been plenty of tense moments. On this night, there was only respect as they congratulated each other after the race.
To really illustrate this, we caught this interaction on the mics before the post-race press conference began.
Barcia, quickly turned to Tomac randomly during the awkward quietness
Barcia: Kids good?
Tomac: Yeah, man. [Nods]
Barcia: Nice.
Tomac: It was pretty funny, they were both KO’ed by the end of that second moto.
Barcia: Oh yeah, Amber [wife] didn’t even make it to the podium, he is still knocked out right now. [Both laugh]
Lots of water under the bridge between the Tomac and Barcia camps. We’ve seen battles, contact, even arguments. But there would also appear to be mutual respect as two riders who “made it” from their group. They’ve run the same gauntlet, faced the same challenges. When you look at the rest of that 2005 85cc (12-13) group, you realized success on factory 450 race teams is not a given, even for some very talented riders.
Australian Tye Simmonds took third in the class. He briefly gave racing supercross a try with the old JDR KTM race team but announced his retirement at a young age. Fourth overall came “Spiderman” Shawn Rife, who was a real star on 65s. He actually won the first moto of that week, ultimately taking 1-6-6 scores. Arkansas’ Terren O’Dell was fifth overall with 5-4-5 finishes. Blake Wharton was sixth, ahead of a rider who is still racing supercross today, Dean Wilson, who finished seventh overall. Also racing that week was Malcolm Stewart, who finished 12th overall. So many fast kids who probably worked really hard and saw their families make huge sacrifices for their racing. But only a few even got to race at the highest level.
A little further behind Tomac and Barcia at Glendale stood a series of battles between Aaron Plessinger and Adam Cianciarulo. Much is made over Cianciarulo and Cooper Webb being the same age and racing each other as amateurs, but Plessinger is from that same generation, also. He was perhaps less heralded because he spent as much time racing Grand National Cross Country (GNCCC) in the woods as he did motocross. Make no mistake, though: Plessinger and Cianciarulo raced each other tons coming up through the ranks.
So, it was odd, funny, interesting, ironic or something along those lines to see them battling again all night at Glendale. On this night, Cianciarulo had one of his better nights of the season, his 7-7-7 scores taking sixth overall, ahead of Plessinger, who went 9-9-6 for seventh.
I texted Cianciarulo about this on Sunday, just wondering what it was like to log thousands of hours of training, testing, practice, travel and more just to end up battling the same dude you battled on minicycles.
“It’s pretty crazy that we have all made it this far,” wrote Cianciarulo. “Results aside, the journey to this point is extremely difficult. I find that the guys in the same generations coming up have this massive amount of mutual respect, because they know the other guy had to walk the same path.”
Motocross and supercross takes a ton of sacrifice, and for all that you’re going to get rewarded, at some point, with injuries, pressure, scrutiny, and more. Making it—which in this case means getting to compete at the highest level, is not something to take for granted. Like any sport, many very talented athletes don’t even get that far.
So, here, it’s always worth a tip of the visor when it happens. Because it takes a lot of determination to keep going. After that 2005 summer, by the way, Tomac returned to the 85cc (12-13) ranks and got the title. Second overall behind him in 2006? Jason Anderson. Only a few will make it, but when they get there, they understand.
