What We Noticed: Tampa
February 12, 2025
Image from Feld Motor Sports, Inc.
In Florida for the first 250E race of the year! Here’s What We Noticed.
- NOOOO Tomac
Ugh…. Horrible news earlier this week. Tomac obviously hurt his leg in qualifying and now it appears he will be out for a while. Eli seemed like the fastest guy throughout the opening 4 rounds, so this is devastating for him. With Jett out, he must have been entering Tampa poised to pounce. Now, his final SX season is marred by another injury and what could have been… maybe we see him back next year? Hate for that to be Tomac’s last SX race; way too similar to the Achilles injury.
Hope he heals up soon and we see him for Pro Motocross Round 1 or even sooner.
- 450 Title Narrows
With Jett and Tomac now out, the 450 championship unfortunately gets a lot less exciting. Add on a DNF for Roczen, and it would appear there’s only two likely title contenders left: Sexton and Webb.
Last week I predicted that Sexton was favored the most with Jett being out. Now? Harder to tell… Sexton made a costly mistake and coughed up a ton of points to Webb. Webb also shines in these 1:1 situations… him vs. Sexton from here on out.
Is it too early to count Roczen out? Perhaps… but his track record definitely doesn’t showcase consistency in long title runs. And with a huge loss of points in Tampa, I think it’s hard for him to overcome with two talented riders in front of him. But… weirder things have happened! It’s not completely over for Roczen yet.
- Whoops and Sand
These were the only areas you could really make up time in Tampa. After 4 interesting and challenging tracks to start the year, the design in Tampa looked a bit boring. But oh no! The whoops and sand proved to be those sections which determined the race. In both main events, crashes in the whoops resulted in a change for the lead. While walking the track on Friday, the whoops seemed super soft and I thought they would break down to nothing. However, they held up pretty well (but broke down enough to cause problems and separate riders). Kudos to the track crew for building challenging whoops all year so far.
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Lappers
Hate to have this conversation again… but lappers once again ruined someone’s race. This is devastating for Roczen after such a consistent start to the season. Sure, he risked it by trying to pass them in the sand, but come on… no rider’s race should EVER be impacted by a lapper CONTINUING to race forward and charge when the lead group is trying to get around them. Time after time we see riders not respecting the blue flag. Can we try in-helmet communication? Force lappers to roll when the lead group is coming by?
- 250E Bad Starts to the Season
So exciting to see a new group of 250 riders! However, it was a bad start to the season for a lot of the title favorites and podium contenders. Kitchen looked off all night. Hampshire surprisingly looked good most of the day despite highlighting how he’s still recovering from surgery, but then got caught in a tuff block for a whole lap. Forkner was sick, looked off all day, and then got taken out. Brown crashed out with a broken back (Ughhhh). Vialle looked off all day, but he managed to gain points on all these other guys.
- Sunny Florida
This was our first race in Tampa and it was super enjoyable. Great hot and sunny weather all weekend… makes me think Feld should host more races in the Sunshine state? Maybe Dolphins stadium in Miami? Jacksonville? Loving the sunny vibes.
