It was a dominant round four of Monster Energy Supercross for the Monster Energy Star Racing Yamaha team, Eli Tomac breaking through to secure his maiden win with the bLU cRU in 450SX and Christian Craig making it three wins from four races in 250SX West. Both riders were available to the media following the race for this Debrief interview feature.

450SX

Image: Octopi Media.

Eli, breaking a two-year winless streak for the 450 Yamaha in supercross. For you, how meaningful was that?

That doesn’t really matter to me… it’s just cool that moving to this new team, it was a little bit of a gamble and it totally paid off – there’s like no questions now that we can get it done. So we’ve just been improving every race, I’ve been getting better every main event. Working on weaknesses and it’s paying off on the weekends. Just really, really good, a really great group of people behind me. We haven’t stopped getting better, so it’s really cool for us to get this first win.

You had the points lead after round three, but did you still feel there was something left on the table and how big of a boost is it to get the win?

It was a big step forward, last week they were faster than me, hands down. I got passed by Jason [Anderson] and then Chase [Sexton] just rode away from me. I had to go to work again, try to find weaknesses, be better, get better and felt good tonight.

Four rounds in and this points battle is still really tight. Did you guys expect it to be this tight or did you guys expect anything different?

A lot of times, by round three or four you really start figuring out who the guys are, but really the first three right, were a total toss-up this year. It’s by far the deepest field that we’ve had.

During the week and the past two weeks, has there been work with the starts? You said you didn’t need to get the holeshot, you just needed to be up there.

Yes, I have been working on starts. I’ve worked on them my whole life, I’ve been more consistent, period. I’ve finally been bringing my practice starts to the race-track. That’s what I was doing wrong before – I somehow was a totally different guy come race night. Now, I’m just doing the same thing I do at the practice track.

At the start of the season, the results maybe weren’t exactly what you wanted, but you seemed very calm and didn’t seem to push the edge. Was there any panic with you or the team or did you always feel a win and the pace you had today would come?

I would say there was some panic after Anaheim 1. Of course, you come in there thinking you’ve got the best stuff and you’re feeling really great at the practice track. You normally do, right? It was kind of a big miss for me there, starts were terrible, riding wasn’t good in the main for the full distance… I was a little bit worried. Thankfully, got a good group of people around us and it made things better.

Did this win, the first on the Yamaha, feel extra special compared to wins previously with maybe more regular or expected with the Kawasaki?

Absolutely, it’s a new page for me right, first one on the Yamaha is totally free.

You’re coming up on 40 wins, which is quite an accomplishment – you’ve obviously won a lot – but what does celebrating this win look like for you?

For me, it’s just like the new year. The first win of the year, I feel like those always feel really nice when you get it in the next season. Tonight was ice cream – you think you’re getting older and you’re like, ‘man, am I going to be able to keep winning and keep doing this?’ Hell yeah, it felt good.

What flavor?

Mint chocolate chip. That’s my flavor [laughs].

You’ve historically gotten better as the season goes on. The first couple of rounds aren’t always the best, but you’re the points leader earlier than you’ve ever been and you got a win here. Is this actually the best you feel you’ve started a Supercross championship?

There were years where I was riding good, but I would crash. Anaheim 1 the one year, I was leading, wadded up, hurt my shoulder. The other years, making mistakes, so, I’ve felt good in the past, I was just kind of a mess. This year we’ve been solid so far, so it’s consistent.

250SX

Image: Octopi Media.

Christian, at any point during that race, did you think Michael Mosiman and you would make contact?

Yes, yeah I do. I knew he was going to put up a fight for the lead, why wouldn’t he? So when I passed him, he had the next corner and I was expecting a front-end in front of me so yeah, he gave me a couple of inches. I think he maybe was like I can try to latch on to Christian and I can make a pass back and he did put his front-end in a couple of corners. Respect, it’s fun to battle with someone who is not going to clean your front-end out every time.

The first two rounds we saw you take it away, ride off into the sunset kind of thing… The third round, opening lap crash didn’t quite see that, you had an amazing comeback. Here tonight, you had quite a challenge with Michael all race long, so what does that do for you mentally? What is your response to that knowing these guys are right on your rear wheel?

I knew Michael would be strong today, looking at our practice times, it was like a blink of an eye, and he backed it up with a heat win. We both had good gate picks. He’s a good starter, I got out and got right behind him and I just pressured him, we didn’t do anything crazy. He made a few mistakes and I just jumped on it. You guys saw that I made the pass, what was cool and different to the other two wins, that was a fun battle, I’ve never had one of those in the main before, like I’ve had them in heat races before, but to do that in a main, that was a lot of fun. It wasn’t anything crazy, we had just a straight clean up battle and nothing that was like, ‘oh crap, here he comes’ or anything like that. It was a blast.

Going back to that battle, you were so patient throughout the whole thing. Was there a part of the race where you thought you were going to go for a pass or part of the track you thought you could make a pass? You seemed to sit there for a long time real patiently, you said you guys were racing really, really clean, was it something that come to it in the last couple of minutes?

No, I mean, I didn’t have anything set it, it was like, let’s try to stick with him and I knew how close we were on times, so I’m not going to make anything crazy and get away. Once I did come back to him, he made a few mistakes, I got up right up close and followed him for a few laps and just picked around and see what he did better. Kind of like what he did that last in the heat race with me at San Diego. You don’t like to be in second, but you do at the same time because you are learning that guys, where he is good, where he is lacking and where you can make the pass. Yeah, that was a fun race.

Yesterday you had a big moment, that has kind of been the elephant in the room. Talk about everything that comes along with that after all the mental stuff you have done with Connor Fields. You now have the incident, it gets seen by everyone around the world, everybody makes a comment about it, they are kind of looking for, ‘is this Christian coming apart?’ but you dulled that today by winning the main event. How has this last 24 hours been? 

I think the crash, my bike ended up the craziest part, I kind of like just ran over a tuff-block and I didn’t get a scratch on me. That was a dumb move, to do that on press day, it was a dumb judgement, and I think it did open up some people, people that I’m racing, is this his time he is falling apart? Or something like that. All I can do is focus on myself and I can’t control what anyone else thinks or says about me. I forgot about it, I went back the next session, did the rhythm again and here we are. I’ll try not to do that on press day again.

Is it weird in the day and age we are in, just to see the instant reaction? Like five years ago no one would ever have seen that, it would have just been a rumour, now it’s everyone, it’s in the broadcast and everything.

Yeah, my mechanic got the video and I’m like should I post this and get out in front of it, then I had multiple texts when I got back to the truck. The nets are a good idea first of all, but nowadays I figured someone had it on video and that last night I had a laugh at it.

Being as you have the most experience, one of the best bikes in the paddock, does it bother you when you are doubted by us in the media, fans, does it drive you, do you even care? 

I’d say a couple of years ago it would have, but nowadays I just laugh at it. It doesn’t matter, it’s social media, you are going to have fans, you are going to have people that don’t like you, you are going to have people that doubt you. So yeah, I mean in the past sure, but I’m obviously older and more experienced and I’ve learned my lesson with that stuff, so all I can do is focus on the positive and that’s it.