Monster Energy Kawasaki arrived at Charlotte Motor Speedway last weekend for the first US round of the 2016 FIM Motocross World Championship, the Monster Energy MXGP of Americas.
Weather delays stopped all activities for Friday but on Saturday the action began with Eli Tomac qualifying fastest. The Moto 1 gate drop saw Tomac second through Turn 1, followed immediately by a battle for the lead. Before the end of the first lap, the #3 KX450F of Tomac took the lead and started to pull away. Tomac would continue to stretch his lead to over 16 seconds by the halfway mark, and as the sun fell below the stadium grandstands, he would take the chequered flag with a 25-second margin of victory.
“We started the day well,” said Tomac. “I had really good practices and got in some clean laps. In the first moto the sun was in my eyes pretty bad in certain sections of the track which was a bit difficult to deal with. I washed the front end out and had a little tip over and then nearly made the same mistake the next lap, it was a bit of a wake-up call for me to get it together.”
At the gate drop of Moto 2, Tomac rounded the first turn in fifth. Within three corners he passed into fourth and three minutes later made the pass for third. Tomac began taking new lines and flowing through rhythm sections with impressive speed as he pressured for second and eight minutes into the moto Tomac raced into second.
With 18 minutes remaining in the moto the leader went down, Tomac moved into the lead and immediately began opening a gap. For the remainder of the race, Tomac was the class of the field, opening up another impressive lead and taking the flag with another first place and the overall win at the penultimate round of the 2016 FIM Motocross World Championship.
“The second moto I had to work for the lead a bit more and the lights make the dirt a bit difficult to read at times,” added Tomac, “but all in all I had a really good time. It’s great to race against new competition and to see what the world scene has to offer.”
