Late in the 450SX main event at the 2019 Indianapolis SX, Cooper Webb cross-ruts while pressuring Eli Tomac for 3rd, and the mistake sent Cooper off the track through a couple of tuff blocks and when it was over he was perfectly positioned to make a pass stick on Tomac. Cooper’s mistake did cut a small portion of the corner off, and after the pass, we immediately saw fans on Twitter and message boards calling for a Webb penalty due to “cutting the track and gaining an advantage”.
To me, it looked like Cooper made a mistake we see all the time and reentered the track in the closet spot to where he exited and he reentered in the safest manner. The question then becomes, did Cooper gain an advantage? The answer is yes and because of that a judgement call could be made to penalize Cooper, but I feel there was no intent—100% accident—and this should fall under “Shit Happens in Racing.” In more simpler terms, Cooper f%$k#d up and got really lucky. As of Saturday night, we are hearing no penalty for Webb and I think the AMA / FIM made the correct call here.
Check out video of the pass / incident in question below.
