P116
CN
III EMPIRE OF DIRT
BY STEVE COX
T
here are many pieces to a
motocross or supercross
championship puzzle. Any
racer who wants to win a title
needs to have all of these pieces
to win. The Eli Tomac we saw
absolutely decimating the field
at the start of the 2015 AMA 450
National Motocross Championship
was an Eli Tomac who had almost
every single piece of the puzzle:
confidence, a burning desire to
win, fitness, speed, skill, focus,
luck and a motorcycle that fit him.
To understand what's been going
on with Tomac over the last couple
of years, we're going to have to
start by explaining a few concepts.
FACTORY TEAMS
When a motocrosser thinks about
being a factory racer, they usually
think about things like $100,000
suspension components, factory
transmissions or having a fresh
motorcycle every time they race.
This is the mystique of being a fac-
tory star. Factory guys literally have
parts on their motorcycles that
you cannot possibly buy even if
you have the money. But the parts
are not what make a factory ride
so great. Neither is the money,
although it's considerable in many
cases.
What makes a factory ride so
great, from the perspective of a
racer in the running to be on any
of our sport's factory teams, is
the ability of a team to custom-fit a
motorcycle to you. Factory teams
allow a racer to have a motorcycle
built from the ground up to suit
their riding style, their size and
their tendencies, rather than the
racer adjusting those things to fit a
motorcycle.
And at this level, what works for
one racer is not necessarily going
to work for another.
SETUP WOES
The entire motocross/supercross
industry and fan base assumed
that Eli Tomac would return to his
winning form of 2015 as soon as
his shoulders were done healing,
meaning by about halfway through
the 2016 AMA Supercross Series—
or at least by the time the outdoor
nationals rolled around, since
that's where he was so dominant
the year before. The Monster En-
ergy Kawasaki team has a winning
record and a winning reputation,
and with Tomac on the team, get-
ting paid very well, it was almost a
foregone conclusion that he could
end up being very tough to beat.
But it wasn't the case, at least until
now.
As I reported last June here
Tomac has been fighting setup
issues. He likes to have his bike
steer on the front wheel—as is the
most common technique for most
of the 450cc field—while former
Kawasaki team captain and racing
legend Ryan Villopoto preferred
to steer with the rear wheel (as did
Ricky Carmichael in his heyday).
(Now, it's here that I must make
a disclaimer: None of what we're
about to discuss has anything at all
to do with how a stock Kawasaki
KX450F works under normal,
THE BIKE OF ELI
Did Eli Tomac and the Monster
Energy Kawasaki Team finally ar-
rive at that "magic" setting for his
KX450F? Sure looks like it.
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
HOPPENWORLD.COM
