Photo by: Hoppenworld
Heading into the 2015 Hangtown National, most of the eyes were firmly placed on Red Bull / KTM’s Ryan Dungey and the returning 2014 450MX Champion, RCH / Soaring Eagle / Suzuki’s Ken Roczen, but Monster Energy / Kawasaki’s Eli Tomac made them both look like they were tied to a telephone pole for the opener. The #3 went out and decimated the 450 field by 22 seconds in moto one and an amazing one minute and 30 seconds in moto two. It was a performance like we have never witnessed, and Eli continued to dominate for the next three motos of the year before getting hurt at the Thunder Valley National.
Jump ahead to last weekend, and a lot of us were wondering if the Colorado native would do it again. After his injury last last year, Eli switched from Honda to Kawasaki, and while his Supercross season did not live up to expectations, his win at the 2016 Daytona SX had some believing Eli’s season would not start until Hangtown, but unlike 2015, 2016 was all about Roczen (1-1) and Dungey (2-2) at the front.
Eli qualified first in the morning sessions, but mediocre starts in both motos left him battling forward to salvage an overall podium with a 4-4 on the day. In moto one, the big surprise was seeing Yoshimura / Suzuki’s Blake Baggett follow Eli to the front and pass the Kawasaki for third with just a lap and a half to go. It showed that Eli is not quite back to his 2015 pre-injury fitness, and his post-race comments showed that he and the green bike have not quite come together yet. If history has taught us anything with Eli, though, it’s that he will eventually be battling for wins.
After the race, a very frustrated looking Eli Tomac sat down with the press to answer our questions.
Eli, congrats on third overall today. Talk about how your day went from your perspective.
It was big unknown for us coming into here—for the team, for me and everything. It started off really well with that first practice. We got pole position and took the first gate pick into the motos. Moto one went off and I was buried back there a little bit and I ate a lot of roost early and was struggling. I eventually got to third place but wasn’t comfy at all really, and Blake [Baggett] ended up getting me again later on. I didn’t have very good lines and was missing some insides—that was disappointing—and then I came back for moto two. We made a few little changes and came back and went the right direction on one end of the bike but on the other end kind of felt a little bit goofier. I don’t know; I was just kind of searching all day in the motos themselves where in practice it was really good feeling. It’s something I gotta to work on for sure.
Did that surprise you when Baggett came back on you?
Yeah, I was more surprised at how I felt pressure there. Then, he got me back. When I made the first pass on him, I felt like I had plenty of pace to go by him and probably pull him. Something must have changed; he got fired up or found some good lines. That was unexpected.
With your performance last year—although it was obviously a very different track with the harder soil—did you feel the pressure or expectations coming in to this weekend?
No, no. I think this is my sixth Hangtown now, and there weren’t any nerves really. I was just in the zone and ready to go do work. It wasn’t anything like last year, but there was no nerves making any problems.
What is it that you’re going to look at this week before going to Glen Helen? What do you think you and the team going to work on?
I don’t know. I made changes between the motos. In the first moto, I was struggling with one side of the bike, and in the other moto, I was struggling with the other side of the bike. I don’t know, maybe it was me that wasn’t taking the right lines. There can be improvements from both of us to get to the front of the pack.
Alright, well, thank you so much. Congratulations on the podium, and we’ll see you next week.
Thank you.
