I could literally feel the hair standing up on my arms as Eli Tomac rounded the first turn and took the opening holeshot of the 2025 Monster Energy Supercross season last Saturday in Anaheim.
Being a Capital J, I don’t have favorites. I don’t like any rider better than the next. I don’t cheer for anyone. What I do root for is good stories and we had one with Tomac leading and on his way to maybe a…
And then he lost the font, tipped over, got ran over and the air fall out of a packed Angel Stadium.
Eli has always had a good fan base. He’s the all-American type. He stays quiet and lets his riding do the talking. When he does talk, though, Eli is profound. He comes from an athletic family and, to me anyway, you can tell he’s a student of not only the nuances of riding technique, but the training and the diet and everything that comes with being a professional athlete at his level.
And while I think he’s always been some fans “favorite” the last few years I’ve seen a notably uptick from the crowd when Eli does anything. Maybe it was coming back from a devastating injury. Maybe it’s because we know we won’t be seeing him full-time after this season. I don’t know what it is, but it’s something.

When Eli was going beast mode through the pack in Anaheim you could just listen to the crowd and know he was making a pass. This was the Eli we all know and love. And while he might have lost out on what could have been a victory at the opener, his charge to fifth not only proved 2025 won’t be a farewell tour by any stretch, it showed how much Eli is appreciated—from riders to fans alike.
This being his last Anaheim, it was obviously an emotional night for the multi-time champion.
“It was a night of a lot of emotions,” he said in a Yamaha press release. “We put ourselves in a great position there right at the start of the main event and made it to the lead off the triple. It was a pretty cool feeling, and then two turns later, I ended up washing the front. It’s a mistake that just happens, so it’s very frustrating to do that on the first lap because it usually puts you in last. I just had to recover, make my way forward, and make as many passes as I could. I was actually happy to get to fifth. That was important for us with the points, especially since we were nearly last at one point. Other than that, it was a very good day. I had a good qualifying and had good speed, so I’m excited to get the season going.”

Images: @octopi.media
Y’all are doing a great job, keep up the good work with all these stories from these amazing riders. I enjoy reading these stories from top riders & to be honest it makes the hair on my arms stand up when reading these sometimes…
It was great hearing James Stewart’s reaction to the drop in the press box. James knows the pain of pushing it to the limit in every race. Could have been worse. Eli could have been cleanly passed by Sexton and Roczen and then made a mistake that let Anderson and Web by…. At least now we can still believe. But to me Eli has an issue called alcohol. Beer is brain food, and the more brain power men have, the less wise they seem to become, “If you don’t mind, it don’t matter! Belch! Pull my finga!”. (Is it too early to say the psychedelics are 10x worse as the stuff goes mainstream? The Nazis apparently loved the LSD, and it seems like minus that we would just not have had the full nazi experience.) When women are brats, it’s a calamity, it mostly falls on them. When men are brats, it falls on all of us. One day at a time. That’s what it means to be a champion. That’s why sports are such a big deal. Together we rise.