Steve Cox | May 5, 2017
2017 Las Vegas SX Press Conference: With the last round of the 2017 Monster Energy/AMA Supercross Series tomorrow inside Sam Boyd Stadium just outside Las Vegas, Nevada, today’s press conference seemed to feature a lot less tension than one would assume going in.
The 250cc guys were first, with recently crowned 250cc West champ Justin Hill joined by the three 250cc East contenders (separated by one point): Zach Osborne, Jordon Smith and Joey Savatgy.
2017 Las Vegas SX Press Conference
The big takeaway from the 250cc guys is the fact that of the three East contenders, it should pretty much work out that whichever of the three beats the other two becomes the new champ. The only caveat to that is that if Smith beats Osborne and Savatgy, but finishes fifth or worse, and Osborne finishes right behind him. If that happens, Smith and Osborne will tie on points, and the championship will go to Osborne on the “most wins on the season” tiebreaker.
2017 Las Vegas SX Press Conference
Things got a bit more interesting when the 450cc guys hit the stage. Nobody bothered to ask Red Bull KTM’s Ryan Dungey or Marvin Musquin about last week’s team orders, as the likelihood of an honest answer was slim, but when Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Eli Tomac was asked about what happened to him last week, he blamed his lackluster effort almost entirely on the fall early in the main event, and the track surface being more spongy than any that they had seen this year.
“The whole day was a little bit of a struggle,” Tomac said. “For one, it was a really technical track, and the transitions were soft, but it wasn’t anything we hadn’t dealt with in previous rounds… I would say it was the spongeyest track we’ve ridden. But going into the main event, I put myself in the right position, and I was the guy that made the mistake and just washed the front end out. So, that’s really all there was to it. Yeah, it would’ve been cool to have the hero ride and then come back after that crash, but if you do crash on that second or third lap, it’s tough to make the charge all the way to the front. And it’s tough to push it and hopefully not make another mistake, and I made another one off that triple, so it was a tough one to swallow, crashing early like that.”
When asked in a follow-up about if the pressure of leading the points caught up to him, Tomac said no.
“No, I didn’t feel any added pressure,” Tomac said. “The week before, I had the plate at the same time. It wasn’t the color of the plate for me. It was a tough racetrack for one, and it was me making the mistake and sliding out. I don’t know what to say. I tipped over. I had a lot of good races before that, and wins, and you can only do so much…”
2017 Las Vegas SX Press Conference
But Tomac did put in a pretty heavy dig on the two KTM riders sat to his left when asked about what was going on out front.
“After the fact, I obviously knew about it,” Tomac said. “It was tough to see also, you know? If the championship does go down to those three points, that’s a bummer for everyone. But, hey, if you want to take that home and sleep on that at night, knowing that someone pulled over for you, then it is what it is…”
The only key question asked of Dungey revolved around whether or not this would be his final supercross race. He had previously stated he’d let everyone know by the Las Vegas Supercross.
“Yeah, I’d rather not comment,” Dungey said. “I’ve still got a lot of stuff to figure out. I haven’t really made a decision.”
The racing kicks off tomorrow night at 7 p.m. PST.
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