At the Nashville round of Monster Energy AMA Supercross, Eli Tomac scored his fifth 2nd place finish of the season. After pulling the holeshot, it looked like Tomac may even pull off his second win of the season. In fact, it looked like it might be a race of the “old guys” as Tomac and Ken Roczen starting inching away in the opening laps. Mostly thanks to a triple they were jumping before the whoops, as he mentioned in the post-race press conference:
“I actually saw Roczen do it in the heat race," said Tomac. "I think it was like somewhere towards the end of his heat race. He didn't do it from the inside and I'm pretty sure about that. So, yeah, I did it from the outside in the opening lap and then a few laps in actually there was a line there that kind of came across that little curve berm and then we were able to jump that triple from the inside. So, it was cool. It definitely made it flow better. Cool little floater jump.”
After being reluctant to jump a quad until the closing laps of the race in Daytona (which Eli believed cost him a shot at the win), it was a little surprising that Roczen, who will be 30 in a week, and Tomac who is 31, were the first to send the big jump. Sometimes with age, and too many injuries, comes a tentativeness, where veteran riders don’t always like to be the first to jump things. Cooper Webb, by the way, played it safe and opted not to jump the triple.
However Jett Lawrence caught onto the line, and started jumping it from the inside, he started closing in on Tomac in the lead. He also figured out a different jump combination Tomac was using. It was shaping up to be a great battle when on lap 11 they came up on two riders down in the sand. Eli went outside and Jett was able to sneak to the inside and get around.
“Yeah, I knew he was really close," said Tomac. "In that situation, it's 50/50, like where do you go? I just happened to be on the outside and it didn't quite work out. Because I think there was two guys down there. So, either way, Jett was riding really fast, tried to do what I could to latch onto him. But just lost a little bit of touch there. But those first few laps, were a lot of fun and I got the holeshot and was definitely sending it in the beginning.”
This year starts have been more important than ever. With the competition so close in speed, it just isn’t possible to come from way back and still land on the podium, like in years past. Eli talked about his start in the main:
“I had fifth gate pick so I didn't get a really good rut choice if I would have gone inside. So, basically kind of had to bail to the outside. And yeah, it's a little bit of a gamble in that situation, because if you don't get it, you get pushed out and you get stuck against the bails. So, for me it came down to getting that fifth gate pick and I was like, 'Okay, I'm gonna go outside.'”
With his hometown race coming up in Denver in two weeks, can Eli pull off another amazing start like he did in Nashville? If he can, he might just get another win this season for the hometown fans. Considering how much was taken from him in Denver last year (an injury while leading the race ended his season) it's clear the racing world owes him one. In those early laps in Nashville, he proved he's still god enough to get it.
