Eli Tomac Update After Glendale SX Crash: “Good Thing Is We're Not Too Far Down and We're Fine”
Eli Tomac did not have the main event he wanted at the Glendale Supercross. The Red Bull KTM rider came into the fifth round of Monster Energy AMA Supercross as the championship leader and finished second in overall qualifying to his teammate Jorge Prado before they both pulled massive starts and dominated their respect heat races (Tomac in heat one, Prado in heat two).
Unfortunately, Tomac did not get the jump he got in the heat race when the gates dropped on the main event. Then, he got collected when Christian Craig went down in the first turn and it collected Tomac and Colt Nichols, too. All three riders got up under their own power, with Nichols and Craig getting their bikes as quickly as possible. Tomac was slow to get up and not in a rush to get back to his bike, causing some alarm. However, Tomac did eventually get going, starting dead last. He was not fully up to speed for a few laps and he eventually caught 21st place, Josh Cartwright at the time, and started to make passes forward. Towards the middle half of the race, Tomac was running some of the fastest lap times of the race, although outside of the top ten still. He came through the checkered flag 12th.
Afterwards, he was interviewed by trackside reporter Will Christien, where he said he was not injured. Tomac told Christien the following:
“Yeah, just put myself in a position where bad things can happen, of course. So, start… got a little bit pinched, and then I got taken out by Craig. And so, I don't know what happened, before that or why he crashed or if he caused it. All I know is Craig hit me, and I was done. So, it took me a little while to get warmed up again to kinda get my body loosened up and going, and, yeah, that's what I had, to get back to 12th. And good thing is we're not too far down, and we're fine, so it tough to do some digging now.”
Watch the crash in the highlights below.
Watch the interview with Christien at the 30-second mark in the SMX Insider Post-Race show below.
We will see if tonight's post-race release from KTM has any additional information, so stay tuned.
This is two weeks in a row with Tomac going down hard but avoiding injury, following last weekend’s crash in race two of the Houston SX Triple Crown. Tomac hit the brakes while going up the face of a jump and his bike endoed but luckily, he jumped off and avoided serious injury. Since Tomac won the first two rounds of the season, he has finished 3-4-12 in the following three races.
In terms of the championship though, Tomac leaves third in the points as Hunter Lawrence (second in tonight’s main event) and Ken Roczen (winner of tonight’s race) both passed him. Lawrence will have the 450SX points lead for the first time in his career after starting the season 4-2-2-2-2. Tomac will have time to regroup before next Saturday’s Seattle SX at Lumen Field on February 14.
| Position | Rider | Hometown | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Ken Roczen | Mattstedt, Germany  | 349 |
| 2 |  Hunter Lawrence | Landsborough, Australia  | 346 |
| 3 |  Cooper Webb | Newport, NC  | 315 |
| 4 |  Eli Tomac | Cortez, CO | 275 |
| 5 |  Justin Cooper | Cold Spring Harbor, NY | 273 |
