Image: Spencer Owens / Pro Motocross

In what will be his final championship with Monster Energy Kawasaki, Eli Tomac is motivated to grab one more Pro Motocross title in the 450 class to regain the number one plate before switching teams.

After finishing third in the 2021 Monster Energy Supercross championship, news broke that Tomac and Kawasaki would split after three championships in Pro Motocross and one in Monster Energy Supercross.

With one more campaign ahead of them, Tomac is eager to bring home another 450MX title before his departure to take the number one plate with him to whatever team he lands with this fall.

“I’ve got one goal as always and that’s trying to win,” Tomac explained. “It definitely sucks getting both number one plates taken away from you, so that’s my motivation at this point is to get one of those back or do my best to do that.”

“Going into this season feeling good right now. [Tuesday’s] ride at Pala was nice, to get that Tuesday in so yeah, we’re looking forward to Saturday.”

As far as his approach coming into the opening round, Tomac’s looking to come out with a podium to get the momentum going early in the season, despite the depth in this year’s premier class field.

“I like to come out with a good score, which would be a podium,” he continued. “So that’s always the goal for me is to come out with a podium, and kind of roll with momentum.

“I’m not a big fan of playing catch up, I’ve done it a few times and it gets harder and harder as the season goes on. So I like to come out swinging if possible. And yeah, the field is deep again, so it’s harder every year.

But the competition also changes each year, right? So you never know who it’s going to be [up front] but one thing for sure there’s going to be a handful of guys that are going to be hard to pass.”

Tomac and the rest of the field will line up this weekend at Fox Raceway in Pala, California for round one of the 12-round, 24-moto series.