It isn’t often we see Eli Tomac go down like he did in his heat race. What happened there?
This was purely a racing incident between Tomac and Freddie Noren. Those jumps on the first rhythm had them out of sequence. When Tomac rolled the first jump and Freddie doubled, they were on a collision course if aligned on direction. Tomac was going upward as Freddie was going down and they tagged wheels. That shot Tomac’s bike away from him unexpectedly and the worst part is that he landed on top of his own motorcycle. Had he landed on the ground, he would have likely been fine. That footpeg did damage, though, and sidelined him right when he had gotten back to 100 percent.

After the start stretch there was a section that Haiden Deegan started doubling the gap and landing one jump deep into the next set of jumps. We didn’t see him doing that all day during qualifying, yet he was still able to pull it out. What’s the thought process there? Why wouldn’t he have done it earlier?
Some of the 250’s had tried this with varying levels of success earlier in the day while a few 450’s were executing it well. With better track conditions in the evening, that gave the 250’s a little more momentum and traction to go for it. The track was much harder and less conducive to this type of line in qualifying practice.

Speaking of Deegan, he and Cole Davies had quite the dustup in the 250SX main event. Do you think Davies’ hard pass on Deegan, in which he nearly knocked him down, stemmed from any resentment from past incidents between the two?
I’m sure there was a little extra on it. Deegs talks a lot so most of the field wouldn’t shy away from a shot at it. I give Deegs credit though, because he can take it when given. He doesn’t freak out, he almost embraces it.