VOLUME 56 ISSUE 33 AUGUST 20, 2019 P59
RJ AND ET
With his two moto wins at Budds
Creek, Eli Tomac is now tied for
fourth place all-time in both moto
wins and overall wins with the legend-
ary Ricky Johnson. While this puts
Tomac into an elite club, it should
be noted that the 450MX class is
judged, historically, against the
250cc championships of the two-
stroke era, and during RJ's period
of the 1980s and early 1990s, the
250cc title was only 6-8 rounds,
and then the 500cc championship
started. But the 125cc titles at the
time (judged against today's 250MX
class) raced the entire series.
SAVATGY=DADDY
Monster Energy Kawasaki's (at least
for another week) Joey Savatgy had
scored four sixth-place moto finishes
in a row prior to Budds Creek, which
were his best finishes of the year, but
he stayed home from Budds Creek,
because his wife was due to have their
first child, who was born on Saturday
morning. This choice may have been
made easier by him signing a con-
tract for 2020 before the event, and it
sounds like that contract will be with
the JGR/Yoshimura Suzuki team.
BUMMER FOR NICHOLS
Monster Energy/Yamalube/Star Rac-
ing Yamaha's Colt Nichols has had an
outstanding outdoor series in 2019.
Coming into Budds Creek, he was
fourth in points, had scored a couple
of podium finishes, and had only
finished outside the top 10 in four out
of the 20 motos run, with a majority
of his finishes inside the top five. But
at Budds Creek, he swapped out
hard and went down in moto one,
which caused him to drop out for the
day. He dropped a spot in the points
Briefly...
BY STEVE COX
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROB KOY
I
t's almost hard to believe,
but before his 2019 450MX
Championship title defense,
Monster Energy Kawasaki's
Eli Tomac had never clinched
a championship a round early,
and often he'd end up playing it
safe/smart at the final round to
ensure the successful champi-
onship. After a sub-par perfor-
mance at Unadilla a week ago
cost him 10 points in the cham-
pionship chase, it seemed
likely that this streak would
remain unbroken in 2019, but
he dominated the day at Budds
Creek and got just enough co-
operation from his two closest
title rivals—Honda's Ken Roczen
and Red Bull KTM's Marvin
Musquin—to leave Maryland
with an exact 50-points ad-
vantage, just enough to clinch
his third-consecutive 450MX
National Championship, which
means he can feel free to do as
he likes at the Ironman Race-
way series finale next weekend
in Indiana.
The 250MX class didn't
see a lot of change in the title
chase—with Monster Energy/
Pro Circuit Kawasaki's points
leader Adam Cianciarulo
gaining just two, albeit very
important, points on Monster
Energy/Yamalube/Star Racing
Yamaha's Dylan Ferrandis—but
the change at the top of the
leaderboard was profound, with
TLD/Red Bull KTM's Shane
McElrath dominating the day
with his first-ever 1-1 score,
making both motos look easy.
It's been a frustrating year for
Eli Tomac now has three
of these. He clinched his
third 450MX title a round
early at Budds Creek.
