Anaheim 2’s third round of Monster Energy Supercross saw Eli Tomac claim a dominant victory, marking his first win of the season. In this edition of Debrief, the Monster Energy Kawasaki rider recounts his triumph with questions from the post-race press conference.

Image: Octopi Media.

You were looking like your true self tonight winning in dominating fashing, how was your night?

Man, it was just believing in myself and finally riding good throughout the day. Looking back at Anaheim 1, that was kind of just a wash for us – I was just riding around in 10th place, and last week was not giving us a chance at all being so buried on the start. Tonight I wasn’t right there in the start, but I was close enough to be in the fight and I was really making up a lot of time in the whoops. It just got really hard – the whoops kept breaking down – the 450s just absolutely pummel that track, so the last half there definitely some management going on. There’s the two sets of whoops and then turning into the dragon, that was hard for us – it was a physically demanding track. I’m thankful to be up here fighting for some wins.

Congratulations on the first win of the season. Again, going into Glendale, which will be a Triple Crown, is there anything different you do approaching it, or are just going to keep doing what you’re doing?

We’ll keep up what we’ve been doing at this point. You know, the Triple Crown’s are tough and they’re stressful – you have to go out there and perform in all three of those races. The heat race you can kind of get warmed up for the night, but in the Triple Crown, the first score matters and it means a lot. You’ve got to be ready early for them.

Image: Octopi Media.

Are you going to be working on your starts more? You’ll have to do three next week.

Absolutely, I can’t rely on that inside gate every week. I still need to get better at those – I probably came up 10th or something [tonight], so I still need to get better at that.

Your results have progressively gotten better – it has been changes to bike or changes to what you’re doing out there?

We made a change between week one and week two, but this weekend it was the same. We really just worked on some rideability, and that was the difference. Like I said, just having a good spot on the track and being able to make up time in the whoops. Anaheim 1 – you do it for so many years and you’re trying to figure it out and you think you’re all good, healthy and feel ready to go for a win at Anaheim 1, and then I get 10th. It’s frustrating, but it’s just Anaheim 1 blues. Hopefully we’ve got that in the past.

When you and Ken broke away from the pack, there was about 15 minutes left and you were about four seconds back. Take me through your mindset at that point…

I was trying to catch him as fast as I could. A lot of times it’s hard to think too much – when you’re in the zone, you’re in the zone. You’re kind of just riding, and that’s what I was doing. I was really good up to halfway in those whoop sections, and the dragons back, so that was it really. I just kept trucking along.