Winning wire to wire, Eli Tomac of Cortez on Saturday dominated race day at the Monster Energy AMA 450SX Supercross in Texas, a week after crashing out in San Diego.
No one even came close.
Tomac grabbed the holeshot at the start, followed by Jason Anderson, Blake Baggett, Marvin Musquin and Weston Peick. Tomac quickly stretched out a big 7-second lead over Musquin.
As Tomac pulled away, Musquin was all alone in second, and behind him, Baggett was a distant third. With 2 minutes and a lap to go, Musquin tightened the gap behind Tomac to about 4 seconds.
Still, he would finish 5.695 seconds behind. Baggett finished third, 9.798 seconds behind Tomac.
Series-leading Anderson went down in the fourth lap but got back up in seventh place.
By the 16th lap, he had passed Peick, Cooper Webb and Cole Seely, but remained far behind the leaders. He would eventually finish fourth, 14.457 seconds behind Tomac and 4.658 seconds behind Baggett in the 25-lap race.
“After that third qualifying session, we found our pace, and we were just feeling it all day, Tomac said in the postrace interview.
In his up-and-down start to the season, Tomac crashed out of his first race, did not start the second, won the next two, crashed and finished 13th in Oakland and crashed out of the sixth race, in San Diego. Addressing his season on Saturday, Tomac talked briefly about the frustration.
“It’s tough when you put in three months or whatever it is, for getting ready for the season and you have your hopes high and all of a sudden you’re 70 points down out of the lead, Tomac said. “It’s a place I never want to be in, but here we are, and at least we’re back to winning races.”
Tomac said he entered the season with just one crash during two months of practices in Corona, California, before the first race.
“You can be on this high, and all of a sudden it just goes crashing down like that,” he said. “You just have to keep your head up.”
After last week in San Diego, Tomac was in 12th place in the standings and trailed frontrunner Anderson by 77 points.
With the win in Arlington, Tomac moved into 10th place, 70 points behind Anderson with 10 races to go.
“All you can do is look forward to that next week,” Tomac said Saturday.
Tomac was the fastest rider on the track on Saturday afternoon at AT&T Park in Arlington, setting the pace in qualifying runs and the two heats.
In Saturday’s second heat, Tomac started fast, grabbing the holeshot and winning the race wire to wire.
He won by 3.253 seconds over Jason Anderson, 12.448 seconds over Dean Wilson, and 18.949 seconds over Justin Brayton.
Tomac’s fastest lap in the heat was 49.591.
Tomac also had the fastest lap of 56 riders in qualifying rounds on Saturday afternoon, at 48.395 seconds. He was followed by Webb at 48.803 seconds, Anderson at 48.851 and Musquin at 48.936.
Zach Osborne of Husqvarna won the 250SX race, followed by Colt Nichols of Yamaha, James Decotis of Suzuki, Rj Hampshire and Jeremy Martin of Honda, Jordon Smith of KTM and Austin Forkner of Kawasaki. Martin, who has trained in Cortez with Tomac, finished the first lap in 13th place and battled to fifth. In the last lap, he collided with Smith but got up first to finish fifth, one spot above Smith. Martin Davolos, Forkner, Martin, Smith and Cameron Mcadoo of Honda all went down at the first turn. Davolos did not finish.Tristan Matta of Montrose, Colorado, finished sixth in the KTM Junior 50SX race, 23.692 seconds behind the winner, Carson Wood of Zephyrhills, Florida.
