Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1488031
defending his decision to switch teams at the beginning of the season, he held on to win the Supercross Championship de- spite a bum knee and a red-hot Jason Anderson breathing down his back. And then there was the final round and final moto of the 450cc Motocross Champion- ship that decided the title, and probably the pressure cooker of all pressure cookers was the Motocross of Nations. Tomac and his teammates, Justin Cooper and Chase Sex- ton, were in a must-win situation. American fans were hungry—no starving—for a victory. Anything but a win this year on home soil would have been a massive dis- appointment for Team USA and a disastrous way to finish out what would've been a storybook year for Tomac. As it turned out, it did have a happy ending for the veteran racer, Tomac, and the rest of the team. Pressure? What pressure? Elsewhere in this issue, long- time contributor, Larry Lawrence wrote about some of the things we will remember most about 2022, and I think he nailed them. For me, one of those is Suzuki's shocking decision to pull out of MotoGP. Doing that would have been much easier to understand had Suzuki been struggling in the championship for years and getting blown away at every race, but Suzuki won the MotoGP Championship in 2020 and won two of the final three GPs this year. To do that after you said you're quitting! Huh!? That's a head-scratcher. Suzuki also said no more to endurance road racing, then last week issued a release stating it's shuttering its official racing website. But just when you think Suzuki is giving up on racing completely, the company ac- quires one of the biggest names ever in motocross, Ken Roczen. After leaving Honda, which was also one of the big surprises of 2022, Roczen ultimately signed on with the Suzuki- supported H.E.P. Motorsports Team for 2023 after doing plenty of pre-season window shopping. Will this be Suzuki's last hur- rah in racing, or will this be the beginning of a big comeback in racing for Team Yellow? It's go- ing to be fun and exciting to see how all this pans out for both I doubt anybody will second- guess our decision for this year's Cycle News Rider of the Year, Eli Tomac. I think there was no official discussion among our staff about who that rider should be. Of course, our Road Test Editor, Rennie Scaysbrook, said it should be Pecco Bagnaia, and we were ready for that. We admire his passion for the sport of road racing, but when we reminded Rennie of Tomac's accomplishments this year, even he had to agree that Tomac was the guy, despite Bagnaia's accomplishment, which was indeed ROY worthy. Yes, Tomac was an easy choice for us. What impressed me most about Tomac this year was how he stood up to the im- mense pressure he faced. While P180 CN III OBSERVATION CHECK BY KIT PALMER FAST FORWARD