Star Yamaha clears up Eli Tomac’s trouble in Detroit

Everyone has been wondering if the old Eli is going to show again or if he is just a fifth to tenth place guy now. He looked ok in the two mud rounds but those were full mudders and speed was not an issue. Then he flashed his old self in the third main at Anaheim 2 and everyone got excited that we would get to witness beast mode again.

In Detroit he qualified 4th which is not bad for Eli as he is rarely the fastest in qualifying. He was 6th in his heat race which was not where he would want to be. The real concern came from the main event. He started great, fighting for second place off the start and settled into third place and ran there for six laps. I think most people were excited to see Jett, Chase, and Eli running in top three and with small gaps. But after that sixth lap the wheels started to fall off figuratively for Eli as he began to fade and slowly dropped over the moto back to 10th place where he finished a lap down.

There was plenty of speculation by others that he might have developed arm pump, had one of those Eli off nights, or some type of bike issue. The prevailing theory was a rear shock issue. This was fed by someone on the track saying they noticed the #3 Yamaha shock making different noises and then there was someone online that claimed to know John Tomac and that he had been told there was a shock issue. We will probably not ever know what the real issue was.

Jeremy Coker responded today with the following statement:

“There was not a shock failure in any way. His current shock setup is good on harder, drier tracks. When we got to the sticky, rutty dirt like this weekend it sucked the rear of the bike down and in turn gave him arm pump.”

Photo credit: N. Suhr