CHAMPIONSHIP
VOL. 56 ISSUE 7 FEBRUARY 20, 2019 P59
like I lost time, so I kind of knew
that was coming, which is why I
went high in that rut as well. But
coming out of there, he went over
to the right, and I was on the left
close to the Tuff Blocks, and it
was super-soft there so I couldn't
really get going. And things hap-
pen so fast that you don't re-
ally have that much time to think
about it, so you have to just go
with your gut."
Webb now leads the points by
two over Roczen with 10 rounds
ing to happen in the last turn, but I
wasn't sure. As a racer, you never
know which direction you want to
go, and the guy wants to go, so
I saw the opening and went. And
dang, what a close race. I didn't
think I actually won until I saw
the big screen, and that was an
incredible race, for sure."
"It's disappointing to put in that
effort the entire moto and then
give it away in the last turn," Roc-
zen said. "Every single weekend
this year, I feel like the whoops
by Roczen and almost made it
stick a couple times, but Roczen
kept fighting back until the last
lap, through the whoops, where
Roczen was taking the preferred
center line that racers could jump
through. Webb switched to a line
to the left of that and skimmed
the whoops, then cut across the
final turn to make contact with
Roczen, slowing the Honda racer
just enough to defeat him by 0.02
of a second at the line to take his
fourth win of the year, and the
series points lead.
"I knew it was going to come
down to the whoops," Webb said.
"I think I could tell where I would
catch him a little bit, and he would
pull me a little bit, and I was able
to do that quad into the turn a
few times, but I wasn't sure if I
could've done it with him guard-
ing the inside, so I kind of fell in
behind him and I knew he was
probably going to jump [through
the whoops] so I went to the left
and tried to skim [the whoops].
I knew he had the inside and I
knew unfortunately what was go-
broke down enough that you
could jump them and they'd get
really edgy. But I prefer to skim
them. They were really weird here
and I struggled with them just
swapping side to side and not
getting a good flow. But I knew
that with this being the last lap,
that was the only spot where I felt
left to run. Musquin is 4 points
farther back, and Tomac—following
a sixth-place and a 12th-place in
consecutive weekends after taking
over the points lead with his win in
San Diego—now falls to 16 points
behind Webb as the series heads
to Detroit, which will host the sec-
ond Triple Crown event of 2019.
Eli Tomac (3)
squandered a
great start.
