INTERVIEW
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250 AMA MOTOCROSS CHAMPION ELI TOMAC
and motorcycling, but when
you're that young, I think you just
pick the one that you like most.
And, for me, that was dirt-bikes."
Tomac just wanted to do what
he wanted to do, and his parents
both supported that. John has
always been very familiar with
motocross and even trained with
some elite racers of the 1980s
and '90s. He wasn't going to
push Eli into any bicycle sports.
"I think a big part of my success now is that I really wasn't
under my dad's shadow," Tomac
says. "I wasn't pushed into mountain biking. I think a lot of people
that are successful in their sport
normally push their kids into what
they're successful in themselves.
I'm glad I was able to go into my
own sport. My dad rode for fun,
so he had interest in it a little bit,
but I didn't get pushed into his
specific career. I mean, obviously people see him as John Tomac
the mountain bike legend, but I
just see him as my dad."
Even though Eli is a star in his
own right, there are still plenty of
people at the races who ask for
autographs from his dad.
"You know, I've gotten so used
to it," Eli says. "It's not crazy at
the motorcycle races, but there
are always a few here and there
asking for him. And when he was
in his heyday in mountain biking,
I was so little that I didn't even
care. I was like four or five years
old when I was thumpin' around
the bicycle pits. I was just running around stealing Power Bars
off the booths and all that. I didn't
really care who 'John Tomac' was
at that point."
Tomac and Wil Hahn will make up
the GEICO Honda's new 450-class
team in 2014.
Now that Eli has grown up,
he finds it a lot easier to take advice from his dad, and John is all
too happy to help Eli out when it
comes to John's expertise.
"For training, when I'm in California, I work with Ryan Hughes a
lot, and he helps me get my gym
stuff together," Eli says. "So, I get
most of my gym stuff from him,
but when it comes to cardio, I go
through my dad. I think he knows
what's going on there."
But when it comes to the mental stuff, Eli has always tried to
figure it out himself.
"To be completely honest, my
dad doesn't give me any mentalmindset help at all," Eli says. "I've
