GEICO Honda's Eli Tomac battles hard for St. Louis second

ST. LOUIS (March 28) -- GEICO Honda 450CRF racer Eli Tomac was like a heavyweight boxer during the Monster Energy Supercross race Saturday night at Edward Jones Dome.

Tomac took a few shots but fought back to earn his seventh podium finish of 2015 and his fourth finish of second or better in the last five races.

"Very hard-fought," Tomac said in describing his runner-up result Saturday. "I'll absolutely take a second."

Tomac moved into second place in the 450cc points standings by following up last week's victory in Detroit with the runner-up in St. Louis. But this one was by no means easy, beginning with his heat race earlier Saturday evening.

"It started from the heat with a first-turn crash," Tomac said. "I wasn't actually on the ground myself, but I got stuck behind it and had to sit there and wait."

He was eighth after two laps of the six-lap heat, and there wasn't nearly enough time to advance into the top-four automatic transfer positions to the main, so Tomac had to race in one of the two semi's, a race which he dominated.

Still, he didn't have the best gate pick for the start of the 20-lap main.

"That kind of snowballed to a bad gate pick for the main, and my start wasn't that good anyway," Tomac said. "That was a bummer. When Ryan (Dungey) gets out front, there's too much ground in between us now. I wasn't that much faster to even have a chance. It was a big fight for second."

Tomac did set the fastest lap of the race at 47.101 seconds, but after battling to get around Jason Anderson for second, Dungey was long gone.

"I was trying as hard as I could," Tomac said. "I had a good battle with Jason there for quite a few laps. I should have made a pass on him earlier, and that kind of blew it for me. That shuffled me back probably five seconds or so. That was make or break to have a sniff at the win."

The numbers bear Tomac out, as he finished less than four seconds behind Dungey.

Tomac and the Supercross series get a rare weekend off for Easter before returning to action April 11 at NRG Stadium in Houston.