Supercross season has a super championship battle going heading into Daytona Beach
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- More than one-third of the way through the 2023 Monster Energy Supercross stadium season, three riders are beginning to break away from the field, putting the battle between Eli Tomac, Cooper Webb and Chase Sexton, a relative newcomer to the 450 cc class, as one for the ages.
While Tomac has sported the Dred plate signifying his points’ lead since the opening round, this has been one of the closest Supercross battles through Round 7. And with this weekend's Daytona Supercross race coming up and another outdoor track still on the schedule at Atlanta Motor Speedway on April 15, it is going to take some time to determine who is the clear-cut favorite.
Tomac entered 2023 as the defending champion of not only the Supercross series, but also the outdoor Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Series. And yet with all that recent success, the 30-year-old Tomac thought this would be his farewell tour. He was prepared to let someone else win the 2023 Motocross championship. He was also willing to forego his shot at winning the inaugural SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX).
The 2023 season will feature a three-race playoff style championship at the end of the year that will crown a unified champion across the indoor and outdoor series for the first time and riders have been jockeying for points early in the year. The top 20 in combined points at the end of the motocross season in late August will have an automatic berth into the playoffs.
This year, every race is just a little more important as a result. Originally scheduled to run only the stadium series, Tomac spent the first six weeks deftly fending off queries about his intentions of sticking around longer.
“At the beginning of the season, I truly thought this was going to be a farewell tour, but I've been having too much fun racing my motorcycle," Tomac said last week when he made the announcement he would run the full outdoor and SuperMotocross schedules. "I have been enjoying every minute along the way with the team, so I'm excited to announce that I will be racing the entire SMX series.”
Following Supercross Round 6 in Arlington, Texas, the separation between Tomac in first and Webb is a slim two points. If one of those riders wins this week, he will leave Daytona as the championship leader heading into Indianapolis with the series one race shy of the halfway mark. Sexton is five points behind Tomac and can also walk away with the red plate.
How did the riders all get here?
For Tomac, it has been a story of managing bad days. He got off to a great start in Anaheim and San Diego with back-to-back wins in the first two races. A bad moto in the second Anaheim race after he crashed on a tunnel jump dropped him to sixth and put Sexton on his back wheel. Tomac rebounded and won in Houston the following week.
Tomac struggled again in Tampa, finishing fifth on a difficult track that saw most of the field hit the ground at some point during the weekend. There is a reason that Tomac continues to be competitive at 30, considered old by motorcycle racing standards: he does not race above his skill level. Tomac recovered the following week to win in Oakland and tie Ricky Carmichael for third on the all-time Supercross wins list.
Last week, Arlington was another disappointment. Tomac crashed while leading the final feature in a three-moto format. Another rebound is not guaranteed, but Tomac has won the last four Daytona Supercross races and six of the last seven. In 2022, that victory kicked off a five-race winning streak.
Webb has a reason to believe he can challenge. The winner of the Supercross championship in 2019 and 2021, Webb has seemingly mastered the odd-numbered years. Entering Round 5, Webb knew it was time to kick into a higher gear.
Prior to that race, Webb said, “The bottom line is it's time to get that first one of the year and try to maximize our points and get back a little tighter in the hunt. But overall, we're still in a really good spot. It's time to go racing.”
Then, he went out and won that race as Tomac struggled to finish fifth. For Webb, opening the floodgate has always been the precursor of great things. In 2019 after a slow start in the first two rounds, he won the third race and then four of the next seven.
In 2021, he finished ninth and fourth in the first two rounds before standing on the podium in nine of the following 10 races.
After winning in Tampa, Webb finished second in Oakland and won last week’s round in Texas.
Sexton has had the speed, but needs to eliminate mistakes. In Tampa two rounds ago, he was in a position on the track to take the red plate from Tomac until Webb pressured him into a mistake. He finished second.
Sexton also crashed two weeks ago in Oakland, which handed the lead to Tomac. He finished third in that round and is the only rider in the field with six podium finishes.
In fact, the three points’ leaders have practically swept the top three spots. Tomac and Webb have five podiums each, which gives the trio 16 of the possible 21 podiums through this point in the season.
The tight competition has Webb and Sexton in mind for an upset.
Last year, Webb led 15 of the 18 laps before Tomac made a late-race pass. Webb has five podium finishes there in five starts, but has yet to win.
Sexton rounded out last year’s podium in only his second start. And there is a strong possibility that the three riders leading the points coming into this round will once again sweep the podium.