After finishing fifth at the 16th round, Eli Tomac claimed the 2022 Monster Energy AMA Supercross 450SX title one round early in his home state of Colorado. In his first year with Yamaha, Tomac earned (so far) seven race wins and 11 podium finishes en route to becoming the oldest AMA Supercross premier class champion ever as he brought the BluCru their first 450SX title since James Stewart in 2009. Then, Tomac dropped a bomb in the post-race TV interview as he announced he had a knee injury in his Atlanta Supercross heat race (round 14) and was happy he could stick it out and get the title. Woah! It was a pretty upfront statement from Tomac, who most know is a reserved individual, so props to ET3 for coming clean. In a brief post-race press conference with Daniel Blair shortly after, Tomac commented about his mental space throughout the 16th round:
“To be totally honest, I was pretty calm. Just one, for where I was and the points position that I was in. Two, I knew physically I could get through it. I was more freaked out at Atlanta and in Boston because my knee was jacked. It still is not great. So, I was pretty stressed out right there. I didn’t ride this last week at all. So, today when I woke up it wasn’t crazy stressful, but like I said, those past two I had more worries on my mind.”
Read Tomac’s full post-race interview with Blair
Remember back to the Atlanta Supercross, when Tomac tried to pull the move Jason Anderson did to him the lap prior and it did not go so well? Watch it at the 6:45 mark below.
@AlwaysMoto (a physiotherapy on Instagram) said he believed Tomac had injured his MCL in his knee: “He has most likely caused a tear to the MCL (medial collateral ligament) of his left knee.” Below is @AlwaysMoto‘s post, although the exact details had yet to be confirmed.
On the PulpMX Show tonight, Tomac called in to talk about his season and his move to Yamaha. Steve Matthes also asked about the knee injury, and Tomac went into detail, saying the following:
“So, I have a damaged MCL. Nothing else is damaged or torn on the MRI, but my MCL is torn. I guess it’s the only thing in your knee that can heal itself so now I’ve gotta take the time and heal it and hopefully not tweak it again. But for now, it is getting better every day. Actually, the hardest thing to do is squeeze a bike, because that’s the inside of your knee so that’s the point of contact and that’s the part that gets a little irritated. You know, I’m okay like in practice, then like I’m decent for a few laps but where it has been getting me is basically at the halfway mark in the main, and that’s exactly where I have been getting spit out the back. I mean you saw that in Boston and in Denver where I’m just kinda riding around. And it’s kinda effected the way I weight the bike too in the turns. So I’m hoping I can gain that strength back and that’s all I can do at this point. And looking to the future, I think I will be okay for outdoors to go ahead with it. As long as I don’t piss it off.”
Steve Matthes asked, “Is this something where you may take this weekend off or no?”
Tomac responded:
“Uh…I would say there is a higher probability of me taking this weekend off. Unless things really change in these next couple of days, I would say I’m not racing Salt Lake [City]. I am going there no matter what to be with Yamaha and all the fans in Salt Lake, but I would say there is a 98 percent chance I don’t race. …And what’s crazy is it’s torn but it is getting better. And it doesn’t really even make sense to me but for what the MRI says, so I don’t know, we’ll just see.”
So there you have it, Tomac confirmed the extent of his injury, when it happened, and that chances are he will rest for the supercross finale as he hopes to heal his knee heading into his first season of the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship as a member of Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing.
You can watch episode #503 of the PulpMX Show below (Tomac calls in around the 35:35 mark):