MOTOCROSS
FIM MOTOCROSS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 17 / SEPTEMBER 2-3, 2017
WW MOTOCROSS PARK / JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA
P48
MXGP
With all the hype and expectations
surrounding the new 450MX champ,
things really were not looking good for
Tomac as the weekend got rolling. It
started out with a 12th-place finish in
Saturday's qualifying race, while Her-
lings and his teammate—and presump-
tive nine-time world champion—Anto-
nio Cairoli went 1-2.
Things improved somewhat on Sun-
day morning during warm-ups, when
Tomac was able to put in the third-best
lap time of the session, but as the day
grew hotter, the motos were still to
come.
In the first moto, Tomac did some-
thing he almost never does: get the
holeshot. A week earlier in Indiana,
he got the holeshot in the first moto
as well. It was his first holeshot of the
entire MX National series. Once in
the lead in moto one, Tomac started
stretching the lead out slowly at first,
and then eventually dropped the entire
field like a bad habit.
He ended up winning the opening
moto by more than 28 seconds over
Herlings and Cairoli.
"That was tough," Tomac said.
"The heat and humidity are, by far,
the toughest condition right now. The
track's getting really good character
with the sand coming up, and we re-
ally needed that [win] from our earlier
runs and sessions there. I was strug-
gling quite a bit. We've got it figured
out now and hopefully we can go out
there and do battle in moto two."
But when the second moto rolled
around, the roles were reversed, with
the KTM duo of Cairoli and Herlings
getting out front early (Cairoli having
grabbed the holeshot) and Tomac
Jeffrey Herlings
stood up to the
heat and humidity
to claim the
overall win.
