As the 2016 Hangtown season opening Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship looms near, we’re taking a look back at Eli Tomac’s dominating performance at last year’s opener. Aboard a GEICO Honda CRF450R at the time, Tomac turned in a pair of the most impressive moto performances the 450 Class had seen in quite some time – the guy was on fire.

After locking in multiple wins during the 2015 Monster Energy AMA Supercross 450SX Championship, the Colorado native was expected to impress in the outdoor championship, a discipline of the sport he is arguably seen as more of a specialist in. Well, Tomac clearly did more than impress, he absolutely dominated the entire field of world-class motocross racers including Red Bull KTM’s Ryan Dungey and RCH/Soaring Eagle/Jimmy John’s/Suzuki Factory Racing’s Ken Roczen.

Tomac kicked off his season opening assault as the fastest 450 rider in practice before going on to lead every lap of competition across two 30 minute motos – Tomac also earned his second career 450 Class victory in the process. As if leading each and every lap of both motos was not enough, Tomac finished the second and final of the day with an incredible 91-second margin over his closest rival, Ryan Dungey.

Image: Simon Cudby.

Not since 2008 during James Stewart’s perfect season had a rider won by more than a minute, with Stewart doing so at Spring Creek MX Park with a gap of 70 seconds over the now retired Tim Ferry. The only margin on record that was larger came from ‘The GOAT’ Ricky Carmichael, who lapped the entire field during the second moto at Spring Creek MX Park during the 2006 season aboard his factory Suzuki RM-Z450.

As a result of his dominant performance, Tomac entered Glen Helen’s second round of the championship as the first Honda rider to do so since Australia’s very own Chad Reed kicked off his 2011 campaign with a bang under his now shut down TwoTwo Motorsports operation. Tomac entered Glen Helen and continued to dominate winning both motos to maintain his points lead over Dungey heading into Thunder Valley’s round three in Colorado, Tomac’s home state.

Everything was going to plan for Tomac in Colorado as he captured the opening moto victory and made it five from five moto wins, a clean sweep of each and every moto to that point in time – then it happened, the dream end came to an abrupt stop. While leading moto two by a large margin, Tomac entered a rough sweeping section of the circuit and suffered a huge high side crash. It was clear instantly that the points leader was hurt, but to what extent exactly was totally unknown.

Image: Simon Cudby.

Reports then began to flow through that Tomac had seriously injured not one, but both of his shoulders in the crash and would require surgery on both of them. Such a drastic injury obviously forced him out of the remainder of the 2015 season, a tough blow for the rider who was having a dream run in arguably the most hotly-contested motocross series on the planet. Dungey would go on to take over the points lead and eventually claim the 2015 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship.

During his time off Tomac made a huge move leaving the GEICO Honda team he had been with throughout his entire professional career, to sign with the Monster Energy Kawasaki team. Many were unsure how Tomac would fair in 2016 with the big move and returning from such severe shoulder injuries, but he has shown strong form so far with a supercross victory in Daytona and multiple podiums in the latter stages of the season.

Can Tomac enter this weekend’s Hangtown event after such a serious pair of shoulder injuries, on a completely new team and replicate his 2015 performance? It’s definitely not out of the question, but one thing is for certain, he has a seriously strong set of contenders lining up beside him once again to make sure he doesn’t do so. But as always, we’ll have to wait and see how it all pans out on race day.