The Conversation: Webb and Tomac Banged Up

So he hasn’t been able to barely practice?
He’s been trying to ride one day a week.

So has his speed been suffering as a result?
I don’t think his speed has been suffering at all. His speed has actually gotten better because he’s been working on specific things. And even since the injury you’ve seen him win races and you’ve seen him set pole position. It benefitted him in that he’s tried to change his technique a little bit and he’s gotten better. In the opening laps he’s okay, but it’s just when he gets deep into a race that it becomes a problem.

Has it gotten worse the last few races then? After he was tied with Lawrence?
Definitely when we tied Jett with points, he tried to step it up a little bit and ride a little more because he was in that position. That might have hurt us a little bit. I think that’s kind of what set us back a little bit.

So why wait until tonight to make it public knowledge?
The less you talk about it with people, the intention is, the less you feel it. You try not to talk or think about it, you don’t bring it up, and you just move on. That was his goal and our goal at the same time. But at a certain point you start getting a lot of questions. He’s riding around with his hand maybe off the handlebar, and I told him it was time to let everybody know so we don’t keep getting questions and not being able to answer them.

What kind of a mental state did this situation put him in, in these last few races?
It’s definitely a mental break. It’s frustrating because he knows he can do it. He’s done it, he’s won the races and he got to where he needed to be in the points with Jett. He’s been faster than Jett sometimes. Not all the time, Jett is obviously an amazing rider. But with this injury he’s not able to show his true potential, and that’s frustrating. Frustrating for him and frustrating for us. We’re just doing everything we can to stay in the fight. We know better than anybody that in the blink of an eye, these points can be gone. As long as we’re still there, within a race, that’s all that matters.

Did something happen to Eli Tomac when he crashed in the main? He was looking fast before he went down.
Yeah. Unfortunately, he crashed and hurt his thumb in the main. Nothing is torn or broken, but he definitely stretched something, or pissed it off, and inflamed his thumb. That hurt him tonight. In the beginning of that race, before he crashed, he was flying. I was like, "Okay, maybe he’s okay. Here we go." I think we’ll be all right next week. He’s going to recover this week and we’ll see.