Vurbwes Chilidog
If Anaheim 1 was supposed to be the night we found out whether Eli Tomac could still do this — new bike, new team, another year older — the answer came rather bluntly.
Absolutely yes he f****** can. No cap, as the kids would say… I think.
Tomac didn’t squeak one out. He didn’t get lucky. He didn’t ride conservatively. He lined up, took control, and owned the 450SX main from start to finish. Wire to wire. No drama on the surface — but plenty going on inside the helmet.
Leading Is Lonely — and Brutal
From the stands, it looked calm. Too calm. But Tomac says those races are the hardest ones to win.
“Those races are tough, leading from basically the get-go,” Tomac said. “Focusing for those full 20 minutes… those are some of the toughest races.”
With Ken Roczen hovering just close enough to be dangerous, Tomac described the race as a full-blown mental war.
“It becomes a mind game of focus… marking where they’re at. Kenny was keeping me very, very honest the whole time.”
Translation: don’t f this up.
And the timing couldn’t have been better, because when it mattered most, the bike finally came alive.
“The motorcycle was probably the best it’s been all day, and that was in the Main Event,” Tomac said. “We made one small change… and went the right direction.”
Small change. Big statement.
New Team. New Bike. Same Result.
Let’s be clear — this wasn’t supposed to be easy.
New manufacturer. New program. Limited race time on the bike. A preseason that included highs, lows, and plenty of unanswered questions.
“You never know,” Tomac admitted. “You don’t know until you get out here and race everyone straight up.”
Sure, World Supercross helped. Testing helped. Traveling coast to coast helped. But Anaheim 1? That’s where the truth lives.
“That’s where racing, you cannot replicate it,” Tomac said. “When your adrenaline’s going and everything’s on the line… that’s where you really find out what works and what doesn’t.”
“I’ve been very locked in with that scoop tire,” he said. “But sometimes you’ve got to make a change to get better.”
Inside Tomac’s Head While He’s Breaking You
“The two sections I absolutely had to be on it were through the tunnel and the triple onto the tabletop,” Tomac said. “I can’t miss this — that’s a big chunk of time.”
Add in the triple out of the whoops and a late lane change he picked up from Max Anstie, and Tomac built a race plan that left Roczen close… but not close enough.
“I had the feeling of the pace that I needed,” he said. “That’s how I played it.”
Precise. And with that Beast Mode Mentality switched on,
Age? Legacy? Still Here.
This win marked Tomac’s 12th consecutive season with a Supercross victory, now across four different manufacturers — a stat that doesn’t happen by accident.
“It happens in a flash,” Tomac said. “It’s kind of scary to think about it.”
“My mind still feels good. I’m still into it. Physically I’m well. So yeah… here I am.”
Last year, people asked if he’d retire. This year, he answered without saying the word.
“It puts a lot of questions to rest,” Tomac said. “Age. Switching teams. Changing motorcycles — that’s one of the biggest things you can do in our sport.”
And then the punctuation mark:
“Hey — we did it.”
Message Received
Anaheim 1 wasn’t about championships yet. It was about credibility. About whether Eli Tomac was still capable of running at the front when everything changed around him.
He didn’t just pass the test.
He ran the table.
Same Eli. New colors. Same result.
And if this is “the right way to start,” as Tomac put it?
The rest of the field just got put on notice.
