Eli Tomac is back! After a year with some signs of life, but no wins, the proud multi-time Monster Energy AMA Supercross Champion had to admit that frustration was sinking in. But it all turned right in St. Louis, when Tomac ended up, technically, with a 1-1-1 sweep of the Triple Crown. Jett Lawrence was penalized out of the win in Race Two, giving Tomac the win, but that should not overshadow how well Tomac rode on the night. He kept pressure on Lawrence for quite a while in Race Two, and pulled away from Cooper Webb and Chase Sexton in Race Three to ice the victory.
It was a return to form, and the fans absolutely loved it. After the race, he admitted the frustration had been sinking in, making this weekend quite a relief.
Just want to talk about what this means to you and your team and, uh and congratulations, by the way on just how, uh how amazing you rode tonight.
Eli Tomac: Yeah, it just feels good to deliver a win for the team. I was in a bit of a rough patch these last few weeks, a bit of a slump there and struggling with a lot of things, a little bit of my body, a little bit of just overall riding on the track there. So, tonight was old me. I just was able to execute everything that I needed to do. You know, starts, riding, qualifying, all of the above. This was big for us. I didn't like where I was finishing before this weekend.
You mentioned a bit of a slump the last few weeks today. Amazing ride though. What's the difference?
Well…putting…putting everything together and really that's it. I mean, I don't wanna be…I don't really know where I'm going with this at this point, but, just executing everything. This just felt good. To be honest I was struggling in those the crazy, crazy, soft conditions. Just having comfort and getting through those mains and doing everything right. So, yeah, it's good.
Did these soft conditions, week to week, make it difficult to sort of make gains during the week?
Yeah, I mean, I was just struggling straight up. So, the real story is I tweaked my ankle like three weeks ago and I haven't been able to balance right, either. So, tonight that finally came around, too, and my balance is back. So, maybe it was some of that. The soft conditions and honestly made it worse when you’re kind of limping around.
I'd like to ask you about what it means to win a Triple Crown in a season that is, it's not quite a comeback, but you have to fight for who you are.
I was at that point. Yeah, I was getting very frustrated and you get to the point, you're like, maybe the comeback wasn't really worth it. So, yeah, this was goal number one, like for my comeback was just to get overall and know I could still be capable of doing it. So, whether it was triple crown or a normal main event, I'll take it.
Eli just following up on that a little bit, you know, on the broadcast, you talk about having that doubt questioning the comeback. At what point into the season do those thoughts start creeping in with you? And you know, how do you sit there and take that when you get so much questioning? You obviously try to keep pretty tight lipped about it. How have those weeks been for you?
It's just part of the game, right? So, you hear it, but at the end of the day you get used to it and you just try to become kind of kind of numb to the, whatever, you know, the people that are making those comments. It's part of the game.
Secondly, you would have had to have heard that crowd following you around the stadium tonight.
That was pretty loud. That was cool. Yeah, the last lap was awesome. St Louis, always a good crowd here. Good track, so good vibes.
Eli that second race. You were running a hot pace with Jet there. What did you learn from watching him? How was the pace for you? And did that give you confidence going into the third one that you had that as a lead pace again?
Yeah, that race, he was better on the one end zone with the whoop section. So I tried to learn from that, tried some different lines and then I lost a little bit of touch at the end. But overall, I knew I was good around the rest of the track and that was, you know, the section that I was going in moto three, thinking, I need to improve this again.
Eli following on to the previous question, I noticed that you were jumping the whoops more than you were blitzing them. Did you ever consider blitzing them? Because Jett was doing that and maybe you were losing some time to him for that.
So, yeah, that was, I kind of had that plan for moto three, but then they just were more beat down and, and I felt like the jump was working. I was just doing what was working at that point in time. But in my mind, I was like, okay, Jett was skimming and kind of hopping in and it was faster. But I still went back to jumping [in the third main] because they got flatter and a little bit faster and there was kind of a main rut down in there on the right side. So that's what I stuck with.
