PRO MOTOCROSS 450MX CHAMPION ELI TOMAC
P146
INTERVIEW
ways and went flying. It was a
pretty high-speed miscue. Did the
bike just skip out on you?
Yeah, it was kind of funny. The
lap before I was actually a little more
in the middle of that section where
there was actually more mud. On the
next lap I went outside to bounce off
of a little bit of a cushion of dirt there
and it didn't hold me at all. I thought
there was more there and the back
end stepped out and that was it.
Your team guys said that you
bonked your head a bit in the fall
and even cracked the back of
your helmet. True?
Yeah, I hit my head pretty good.
Luckily, everything else was fine.
It's never good to hit your head, but
yeah, I was a little dingy after that
crash, for sure.
2017 was your second year with
the Monster Energy Kawasaki
race team. You've spoken before
about what a major and sweeping
change the 2016 season was as
everything was so radically new.
How was everything going into
this new season back in January?
Yeah, there was a lot of change.
The first year was just a whole year of
learning each other. You had super
high extractions, for one, and we
obviously should have. But it was
learning. It was learning each other.
You learn what fits in the right place
and what works for you and what
works for them. You know you have
to work as a team and that's when
you have the best results. We did that
pretty good this year. We finally got
in a good position and it showed with
results. It'll be nice to also take that
into the 2018 season, you know?
The Monster Energy Kawasaki
race team is, for all intents and
purposes, built around you. To
that end, it takes a crew of up-
wards of 17 people to get you and
the works KX450F out on that
track and running competitively.
There is a lot of pressure that
goes along with all that. The crew
of people around you and the
bike reminds more of a MotoGP
team now than a motocross team.
It really is. There is someone spe-
cifically assigned to a certain posi-
tion on the motorcycle—from suspen-
sion to ECU and chassis and engine.
And then you have mechanics. There
is a mechanic for every big hard part
Tomac held
celebrates
his first
premier title
in Indiana.
