Since round three when HRC / Honda’s Ken Roczen checked out of the series injured with two wins, Monster Energy / Kawasaki’s Eli Tomac has won four of the next six main events and looks like the man to beat from here on in the 2017 Monster Energy Supercross, an FIM World Championship series. The only issue for Eli is Red Bull / KTM’s Ryan Dungey and his unwavering consistency. Eli has four wins to Ryan’s two wins, but the #1 still leads the #3 by 24 points as they head into the second half of the season next weekend in Daytona.
In Toronto over the weekend, Eli dominated every aspect of the day and night program inside Toronto’s Rogers Centre. Eli performed what we like to call the trifecta: qualify fastest, win the heat and win the main event. Eli not only won everything there was to win, he was fastest in every qualifying sessions and led every lap of his heat and every lap of the main event.
There was no doubt who the man at round nine was, but Eli still has to figure out how to climb out of the 24-point hole he has created for himself. Eli has twice the wins as Ryan does in 2017, but the story is where the two men finish when they don’t win. When Ryan doesn’t win, his average finish is 2.6 while Eli’s average finish when he doesn’t win is 7.2. That, my friends, is why Eli still has such a huge mountain to climb before getting that red plate.
24 points is normally not an insurmountable gap with eight main events left on the schedule, but if Eli wants this 450SX Championship, he is going to need a mistake from the most consistent rider in the history of the sport. A mistake by Dungey is not something anyone wants to pin their title hopes on, but if Eli can get the gap down to single digits and continue to apply the pressure with wins, anything can happen in Supercross.
After the Toronto SX was over, Eli Tomac sat down with the press and answered a few questions.
Eli, congrats on the win. Good start—got out front pretty early. Was there any point during the main event at all where you knew where Ryan was or you glanced over to check on his progress as he made his way through the field?
Yeah, I try to keep an eye out if I can. There’s certain points where, yeah, you want to do your thing but it is good to eye guys and see where they’re at. Just so you know what kind of pace you can push. If you can raise the pace or not, or just to manage. I was just trying to manage a good, safe lead and get through the night. Once again, that was a gnarly track.
The race to the pole position was kind of dependent on that quad in the middle of that long rhythm section. Then during the main event it depended on not jumping that and being smart about it. Take us through that a little bit.
In the main it was broke down. I think I did it once or twice and that was about it. There was even some times where I was literally doubling through that whole section because even the jump before that—just getting over the tabletop and landing the double—if you overshot it you’d land in the ruts. I even had a spill there in practice. That was a tough one. It seemed like if you could get to that quad it was there. It was almost tougher to do the double and the triple before it.
We see each and every weekend different starts from you guys. Ryan got the start last week and this week you were mid-pack. The weekend before we saw the same thing from you. I’m just wondering what you guys are doing different. I don’t see the consistency that I’ve seen before.
Going to the start, some of it can just be from your qualifying times and your heat races. If you get that good gate pick for the rut, and then after that you got to go out there and just execute the start and do it. It’s tough. Sometimes it doesn’t matter if you win your heat race, or sometimes it does matter because a lot of those gates will be messed up.
Entering the weekend—I think five of the eight rounds—the eventual winner has led every lap. Are starts more important this year and if so, why?
I would say starts are… Yes, they’re important. The class is so competitive. If a guy does get a holeshot and you’re stuck in eighth or ninth, he can make the runaway and he’s got 10 seconds on you before halfway. And a lot of times it’s over by then. I would say because it’s so competitive, you can’t just literally go through everyone and expect to make the run to the front. I would just say everyone’s so fast and so good now it’s tough to do it, you know.
Photos by: Ryne Swanberg – Monster Energy
