Blake Baggett and Eli Tomac are providing a little extra drama in Lucas Oil Pro Motocross.

Early last month at Thunder Valley in Colorado, Baggett put down an unbelievable ride to catch Tomac from behind and pass him on the outside like he was standing still. Fans and racers alike were pretty shocked, and Tomac himself seemed pretty miffed. ET3, suddenly, was no longer the undeniably fastest rider.

"The goal was to do what he has done to us many times and that was break him, that's the bottom line," Baggett said following his June 3 win.

That now-infamous line was said by Baggett in the post-race press conference. Now, it's one thing for a racer to be happy about a victory, but it's quite another to say the goal is to "break him."



Basically, Baggett had just doubled down on his bet. If he were to beat Tomac in the next few motos, it would totally demoralize him and give Baggett a huge boost of confidence and momentum going forward.

But, if Baggett were to lose to Tomac, it would have the opposite effect. Tomac would regain the confidence and momentum, and Baggett would be walking away dejected and embarrassed.

Tomac has a good poker face for the most part. Aside from a few exceptions, he typically appears to keep a cool head -- on the outside, at least. But pressure and mind games have gotten to Tomac in the past. Even as recently as the 2017 Supercross season, in which Tomac made foolish and uncharacteristic mistakes that cost him the championship.

Baggett was counting on this type of mental frustration to mount in his competitor's head. And for their part, the media jumped all over it, capitalizing on the hype and building it up. Whether Baggett intended for it to be this serious of a call-out didn't matter anymore, it was on.

As the racers went to High Point on June 17, Baggett had doubled-down on his call-out. No apology or clarifications were given, and he seemed serious about making it happen.

The question was: how will this affect the two rivals? At first, it seemed as if Baggett had got under Tomac's skin, as the Monster Energy Kawasaki rider made a silly mistake early in the race. Tomac was forced to work from last place through the field to finish 12th. But in the second moto, it was Baggett's turn for a mistake, and he had to come from the back and ended up finishing in second behind Tomac.

Baggett won the day, but he didn't do it in a convincing fashion. By all accounts, it was a draw, and the controversy would continue to build for another week.

By the time they were lining up at Muddy Creek in Tennessee on June 24, everyone could sense the dispute was at a boiling point. Before the race, Jason Anderson, rival to both Tomac and Baggett tweeted, "It's crazy how much shit someone starts talking with more confidence."

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Tomac and Baggett started very close in moto one, but Eli had the edge. He ended up in second place, with Baggett trailing him in third. In the second moto, Baggett went down early, got up in 38th place, and caught back up to third place by the end. Tomac won the race, with Baggett ending up third overall with a 3-3. 

Anderson also beat Baggett with a 1-2 for second overall and sent a little trash-talking down to Baggett's side of the press table. "He didn't break us today," Anderson said.

Baggett even seemed to have backed down a bit on the rhetoric.

"Just got out-rode by these two guys," he said. "That's the bottom line to it. They were faster and the results showed it."

At Red Bud on July 1, Baggett had bad starts early on that prevented him from battling directly with Tomac. But don't think that the controversy is over now. Tomac is quiet but is guaranteed to be thinking about those little words Baggett had for him just a few weeks ago, when he promised to "break him."

Now that Tomac seems to have regained his composure after a rocky few races, will he be the one to do the breaking? Or is Baggett just about to come into his own and fulfill his own prophecy?



Some would look at Baggett's statements and subsequent results and say that it was a mistake. But it wasn't necessarily a bad idea. In the races immediately following his comments, Tomac definitely made some unusual and simple mistakes. It did appear that he had the desired effect.

Perhaps, Baggett just became a little too distracted himself. Obviously, an important part of the psych-out is that you don't also psych yourself out while you're at it. He clearly has the speed to beat Tomac, assuming Baggett gets a decent start and doesn't make a mistake. If he can do that, why not try to get inside Tomac's head again?

This Saturday, the racers will meet on the infamous deep sand of Southwick, Massachusetts. It is a track that both Tomac and Baggett have had excellent results on in the past. Out of the last four nationals there, Tomac has two wins and Baggett has one.

This could be the start of a beautiful rivalry.

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