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Tomac not riding the last few years proves it.
as for this year, i'll be rooting him on the whole way, he is after all the fastest guy in the US so we'd be silly to leave him off because we're butt-hurt.
Me personally, I would probably go every year selected to represent my country; However, with racing the MEC and having the GP races that he was I believe contractually obligated to the past few years I don't totally blame him for not going. He has to have some time off in September/October before getting back to the grind.
I agree with Peelout. I don't think he deserves to be there, but because he is...it would be just wrong not to root for him/our team.
These aren’t going to be direct quotes but he did say these things in some form, I just don’t know the exact way he said it.
1: “I need to stay focused on the series here in the United States. Our series is long and grueling as it is.”
2: “Our series is a meat grinder here and I don’t want to extend our season into mid October with more races.”
Despite number 1, he chose to race both USGPs right up until the MXoN. Races that were essentially meaningless to him. Races that added to the grueling schedule and were not part of the US series. And don’t tell me he was contracted to do so. He chose to sign that contract. If he’d have told Kawi he didn’t want to do those GPs, they’d have said okay.
Despite number 2, he’s doing just that here this year. He’s unnecessarily extending his season into mid October. Why is it all the sudden different now? Sounds to me like he either wants to be the hometown hero or he just didn’t want to ride the European tracks.
Oh wait maybe it’s the travel to Europe that bothered him and he didn’t want to do? Well ... the distance between Glen Helen and Charlotte is roughly 2,409 miles. If we are to assume he started that journey in California (almost a certainty) we can double that number for his travel distance with the two USGPs. That’s 4,818 unnecessary miles traveled after his long and grueling SX/MX season. Plus about an extra 3 hours of race time on MX tracks. A trans-Atlantic flight is roughly 3,500 miles of travel. Give or take a few hundred based on how far you go. The MXon adds an extra hour and a half to the racing time during the season. And yes I know that journey would also probably start in Colorado or California for Tomac, so you can probably add 2,000 as a conservative estimate to that 3,500 number. That makes it a minimum of 5,500 Miles for those who are counting. Point still stands though that the overall travel wouldn’t be a huge massive difference.
Now this year he’s saying it’s an honor to be there and he can’t wait to represent his country. Hmm ... track record says otherwise.
I’d rather he just be honest (like he’s actually done in several interviews after the races throughout his career) and say he just didn’t want to travel to Europe and that he just wants to stay in the US. I still wouldn’t like it and neither would a lot of people. But hey, at least then there aren’t massive holes in your reasoning. You race the races here in the US, whether it be MEC, SX, MX, USGP, etc. and you go on your merry way.
I know many people on this forum would never miss an opportunity to represent Team USA. Some can say it’s easy to say sitting behind a keyboard, but I know it’s the truth. Several top pros feel the same way. Carmichael and Barcia fit this bill, as do most top GP riders. And several others do too that just aren’t quite on that top tier level and therefore don’t ever get the opportunity.
Really all I’m saying is that Tomac’s excuses and reasonings for opting out don’t hold water. They just don’t. Now all the sudden when it’s on home soil he’s ready to go. We will see what he decides to do next year. That will be a big indicator. Am I happy he’s on the team this year? Well yeah because he gives my country the best chance to win. I wish he were on it every year. Even though he’s a fellow countryman and I’ll be cheering for him, it’s still okay for me to point out the flaws in his reasonings for skipping this event. Like I said, there were a lot of angles he could have taken as his reasonings for not going. He chose reasons that can be easily disputed with just a little bit of thought.
Didn’t he fly into the US, race the GP, fly back to Europe for the MXoN, then fly back to the US for the MEC?
Pit Row
Quantity, not quality.
Post a reply to: Tomac