Cooper Webb took the holeshot at Arlington on Tuesday night, fresh off his fourth win of the 2021 AMA Supercross season.
Behind him, fellow pre-season championship title favorites Eli Tomac and Ken Roczen rode.
The three became familiar with themselves as they pulled away as a group, staying in the podium spots throughout the entirety of the race, and leading to a fifth victory for Webb.
“That one’s a huge confidence boost for me,” Webb said on NBCSN after the race. “To win a race with that amount of pressure (is big). I felt like Eli (Tomac) was probably the faster guy tonight, but I just tried to hit my marks and limit my mistakes.”
Webb lead the race wire-to-wire, with Tomac right behind him for a majority of the show.
It looked like Tomac was waiting around for a mistake by the KTM rider, but it never came and instead took him out of contention for the win.
“Going to battle there with Cooper… we had a really good pace going,” Tomac said on the broadcast. “I made one mistake on the bull turn before the whoops and that’s where I lost contact. I couldn’t get back to him.”
The 1-2 for Webb and Tomac means a five-point loss for Roczen in his chase for that elusive first career title.
The No. 94 rider kept pace early on, but ran into a lapper and threw off his threat at victory.
Roczen, however, was in good spirits after the race. This championship isn’t done yet and it’s not hard to see that he feels the same way.
“I feel good tonight,” Roczen said on the broadcast. “I haven’t been on the podium in a couple of weeks, and yeah like I said, we’re keeping the dream alive.”
Roczen falls back to 12 points behind Webb with six races remaining in the 2021 season.
Webb will go for the Arlington sweep on Saturday as the series hosts its 12th race of the 17-race season at AT&T Stadium. The race will again run on a delayed broadcast, beginning at 9:30 p.m. CT on NBCSN.
| AMA SX 450 Points Standings | ||||
| Position | Driver | Points | Behind | |
| 1 | Cooper Webb | 249 | – | |
| 2 | Ken Roczen | 237 | -12 | |
| 3 | Eli Tomac | 213 | -36 | |
| 4 | Justin Barcia | 195 | -54 | |
| 5 | Aaron Plessinger | 169 | -80 | |
| 6 | Malcolm Stewart | 162 | -87 | |
| 7 | Jason Anderson | 153 | -96 | |
| 8 | Dylan Ferrandis | 137 | -112 | |
| 9 | Marvin Musquin | 135 | -114 | |
| 10 | Zach Osborne | 123 | -126 | |
