Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing’s Eli Tomac took his seventh victory at Daytona in 450SX and moved into third all-time in Supercross wins with 49, as Team Honda HRC’s Hunter Lawrence was once again victorious and extended his points lead in the 250SX East category. Both riders were available to the media following the races for this Debrief feature.

450SX

Image: Octopi Media.

The plot thickens when it rains and when you’re dealing with a tough track like Daytona. Is there any switch in your strategy once that happens?

I went to roll-offs just to not chance anything. It’s obviously hard to see with the rain, so that’s the main thing I think about, vision. Luckily for us, it didn’t rain too much during the main.

At what point did you know that you had the win?

With both these guys up here I don’t count the win until I cross the finish line. I got pretty sketchy on the side of the tunnel with about five lap to go or something. I was in the lead at that point but almost made a mistake. But you have to cross that finish line before you start counting any wins.

This is the third race in a row that you three have been on the podium together and the fourth time this season. What does it mean to have this type of competition at this point?

I mean you can see right now us three are separating ourselves to a certain degree, so I guess we’ll expect to see this again.

Can you take us through the pass on Cooper [Webb] for the lead. Obviously, you guys were going down the front stretch right in front of the crowd, so they were super loud. So take us through that moment.

Yeah it was right after the finish line there, I believe he hit false neutral and I was able to slide on by a do the normal triple line, so there wasn’t a whole lot of thought to it, I just happened to be to the right side of him so I was able just slide by.

It seemed like a pretty epic crowd at the podium. How was fun was it to see all of those people there and celebrate your accomplishment?

It was neat. When the fans can get right up in there with us, because the other races it doesn’t happen, so you get to engage with the fans, it was cool.

You talked about it earlier in the day having a bit of a struggle. This track is a lot different than others, was it bike set up you were struggling with, did you change a lot?

I did a little fork-setting change between the first and second-time qualifiers, but that was it, it was nothing major. I was just slow on spots of the track and never really put one really fast lap together.

You guys are going to race a few more of these speedway type of events. Does this race help in getting you ready for those events?

It’s good to have something a little out of the ordinary, so I feel like the speedways are a good change up for us.

Do you think you learned anything from Daytona that will carry over into the SuperMotocross or is it too soon to know?

The big thing about here is the dark sand, so yes our mile per hour is up here which will be like other speedways. But it’s hard to replicate the soil, so I guess you don’t know what you’re going to get at those other events.

Every week you’re breaking a record. Can you not really even wrap your head around that because it’s so intense in the moment right now?

It’s a cool spot to be in, I don’t have much to say. It’s pretty crazy to be at 49 wins, but I don’t have much to say.

250SX

Image: Octopi Media.

You’re now half of a brother duo that has won Daytona which has never been done before. Are you proud of this?

Yeah, I didn’t know any other brother hadn’t won. It’s cool, we don’t really talk about it with any other event, but you always rub it in whenever we’re joking lightly. You know, with Jett it was Triple Crowns, but this year I missed out on a Triple Crown, so maybe they’re not our thing, but it’s fun.

Your early pass on Nate Thrasher, we couldn’t see if there was contact. Was that maybe a little aggressive early or no?

Depends how you look at it, I was coming out and he was outside I was inside getting roosted pretty bad in the sand section, then I kind of just jumped to the inside. So I didn’t feel contact, obviously, it’s not the ideal scenario but you kind of see a shot and you’re making decisions you know. Sometimes you’re going to make wrong decisions sometimes you don’t. I went to the inside and that was the option that presented itself and I didn’t look back, I feel like if you look back at last week when I’m infront it’s going to come with hard racing. That’s what’s going to come with having the red plate when you look back at previous years with guys that have had the same thing, it’s part of it. So yeah, it is what it is and sucks that he went down, but that’s not what I wanted to happen.

With this somewhat hybrid-style supercross track did you make any changes to the bike?

We went one click stiffer on the shock, which might’ve been a rebound call because of the high-speed rhythm lanes, you know you’re hitting them a lot faster, but no honestly not, I feel like the past few years from leaning on the teams experience they come to Florida and we do the whole Daytona test, then we end up racing on our normal stuff, so it’s cool when you can trust in your setup and you’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. The bike was great and we didn’t really change anything, just some mapping stuff throughout the day because of the humidity.

There’s only four guys with more wins on a Honda in the 250 class than you. Does that feel good to be one of the top all-time riders on the red machine?

Pretty good, I didn’t know that stat. I don’t know, I could care less [laughs], I can only be the best version of me when I ride and do well for the team, they’re stoked and Jett’s doing well on the other coast so it’s a cool time right now.