Eli Tomac Crashes on First Lap of Heat Race, Out for Remainder of Salt Lake City SX
After Eli Tomac went down in the second 450SX heat race and did not finish the race as he was helped off the track, we have an update on the two-time 450SX Champion.
Red Bull KTM team manager Ian Harrison spoke to Will Christien from the TV broadcast crew and provided an update. Harrison (who watched the replay with Christien and talked through the crash) said Tomac was clipped in the air by another rider, causing his crash. And when Tomac came down, he landed directly on his hip on his bike’s foot peg. He did not finish the race as he limped off with the help of a member from the Alpinestars medical crew and he did not lineup for the 450SX LCQ.
Despite being banged up and out for the remainder of the night, Harrison stated initial reports show “no internal injuries.”
Harrison said:
"So, as you can see from this replay, as Eli is going through the section he's kind of buried in the start a little bit and it's a split lane and as he takes off from this jump, he gets hit from behind which he then loses control and basically Superman's on top of his bike. And he took all the impact on his hip on the foot peg. So, that's why he's got such a dead leg, and he's also got a lot of scrapes and scratches on his stomach, so that'll be the end of it for tonight for us.”
Harrison added:
“Yeah, he's sore. It kind of reminds me of the last one we had [Tomac’s Cleveland qualifying crash], but it looks like there's no internal injuries, which is good, and it doesn't look like there's anything broken in his hip right now, so that's also great news.”
