VOLUME 56 ISSUE 50 DECEMBER 17, 2019 P103
went to the penultimate round of the series in New
Jersey with an 18-point lead over a surging Eli
Tomac, who won the previous two races. Another
loss to Tomac would mean a maximum 15-point
lead going into the Las Vegas finale, which is a lot,
but not enough to keep him very comfortable at
the final round.
In the New Jersey main event, Webb again ex-
celled under pressure and grabbed the holeshot.
Tomac eventually went by, but Webb kept him
honest until Tomac crashed out of the lead. Then
Webb had to fight off Zach Osborne, who took the
lead, then handed it back to
Webb when he hung himself
up in a corner.
Through it all, Webb stayed
solid, despite the pressure,
and won the race, which
sent him to Las Vegas with a
23-point lead. And that meant
all he had to do to win the title
was finish inside the top 20.
He finished third, ending the
season with seven wins and 13
podiums, and the title.
Although he's a former
250MX national champ,
Webb has always been a little
more natural at supercross,
and he got into the nationals a
little bit off his game a couple
weeks after winning his first
450cc title.
"I think it was one of those things where we
were worrying about theSupercross Champion-
ship, honestly, that was our main priority," Webb
says. "Not that there's always a ton of time to test
for outdoors anyway, but I put supercross first,
for sure. It's one of those things where, what do
you do? I just achieved a life dream on a Saturday
night after not only 18 weekends, but all the way
back to September. I had been at it for basically six
months. We felt like I needed a little refresher and
to take a few days off after Vegas and really soak
in the moment. Then it's like, okay, by the time
you get back into things, you got a week before
Hangtown. I think, for me, the KTM was great right
away, but there's certain things that as racers you
just prefer. Even in supercross, I felt like I didn't
come around with the exact bike setup that we
raced with until, honestly, late December. It was
right around Christmas. And the only thing we had
done was supercross testing. I rode one day of
outdoors when I first got on the KTM. So we were
definitely a little behind in that program. I think that
was a little bit of it. Outdoors is just another beast."
Still, once again, Webb steadily improved, but
struggled to put two motos together. He grabbed
a handful of moto podiums without a single
overall podium, but that turned around at Millville
(round eight), where he won both motos in domi-
nant fashion. But he got hurt soon after and his
season was over.
"I felt like my season progressively was get-
ting better each weekend," Webb says. "Ul-
timately, finally getting—actually, I had never
got on the podium, and I went out in Millville
and went 1-1. So that was a huge step. Then,
