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Eli rode his ass off and was as fast as anybody on the track. Everybody is just so even paced these days that he just won't be able to go from outside the top 10 to a win unless a lot of things go right for him. If I were Eli I would burn through 100 clutches this week practicing starts. I still believe he's the fastest guy out there but not near to the extent as the previous two years. If he can get himself in the top 5 on the first lap he can really go on a tear, but we all know that is a real shot in the dark. Cooper is great but the only reason he is doing this well is that that guy puts himself in a great position off the line 9 times out of 10. Exciting season for sure but I have a feeling it's going to be a snooze fest here in a couple of weeks if Eli doesn't figure out his starts.
https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2019/03/04/mercedes-benz-stadi…
I'll admit to my fanboy ways when it comes to Eli and I'll admit that the race was significantly less exciting for me considering his end result. I can't ditch the wagon though because he did move through more people than anybody all day in a single race. His speed was there it's just a bummer how much the starts are playing into the results in these races. Cooper deserves every bit of credit this season but I don't recall him having to pass more than 5 riders for any of his wins. Would have been interesting if BB got the holeshot and if Coop would have been able to pull the win off with a 5-8 place start. But starts are a part of the game and Webb deserves credit for putting himself in a great spot off the line in most of the mains. In short, yes I'm a Tomac fan, but I have a boatload of respect for what Webb is doing this year. I'm just want to see this title fight continue and it seems that the only person with enough speed to go toe to toe with Webb is Tomac and he is exceptionally hit or miss this year.
Let us count Tomac out of the equation, how many passes have we seen all night ?
I would say we can count it with our 2 hands, maybe 10 passes, maybe less, maybe more, but not much more. Even the LCQ brought no passes. Plus the only passes we saw were due to the rider in front making a mistake (Musquin) or scared by the whoops that night (Alessi, Forkner), it was not really passes based on speed. The only one who was moving up was Reed in the main, then he crashed... Maybe he crashed trying to pass ? It was also a problem at Glendale if I remember well, the race where Savatgy was holding 4 riders for 10 minutes. It should not become followcross or startercross, forttunately it is not often like that and Daytona should be a good one !
What I do miss too is a rider like JS7 who would have had the technique to come back from a bad start, for instance there was a rythm section that was asking for some triple triple or wheelie on triple triple and most were not doing it or were doing it sometimes only. I know it is risky when it is rutty but at the pro level they should also start to train on gnarly tracks, no need to spend money to rebuild it every couple of days if you know the race tracks will be gnaly, it doesn't make sense.
I won't throw the track design under the bus either, it is just that the first races brought I think a bit more action, so now these experiences should help them to design tracks that offer more passing. It is good for the championship so far, but the fastest rider should still come on top at the end, not just the best starters, otherwise riders like Alessi would have 3 titles already. In term of racing, basically this week end I enjoyed more seeing Paulin and Desalle coming from dead last to 5th and 6th racing like mad men on a nice wide and beautiful track, which is not always the case either in mxgp.
Sounds like you made out better with parking besides the dent. I checked my truck out before driving away just to be sure.....
Good post. Except for the part about the only reason Cooper doing this well is because of good starts. I think Cooper could make a lot of passes too if he needed to. He's just riding really aggressive and well. I think Tomac and him could battle every week if they could only both start up front. Hoping for that at Daytona.
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