The art of the start

Three months before the start of the 2017 Supercross season, Eli Tomac's Kawasaki team manager, Dan Fahie, sent him an analytics spreadsheet. On it was race-by-race comparisons between Tomac, 24, and other top riders, including defending champ Ryan Dungey, 27, throughout the 2016 season.

Motocross riders are used to poring over data, but typically, that information focuses on bike performance diagnostics, not Sabermetrics-style race analytics like Tomac was given. That type of analysis was new to him and new, really, to his sport.

But Fahie wanted to prove a point.

"It's one thing to tell Eli [who finished fourth in 2016] that we struggled last year because of starts," Fahie says. "It's…