Slaw
Entering round 13 of Monster Energy AMA Supercross in Nashville, Progressive Insurance/Cycle Gear/ECSTAR Suzuki’s Ken Roczen was riding a wave of momentum. Coming off back-to-back wins, Roczen had trimmed the points lead to just five behind co-point leaders Hunter Lawrence and Eli Tomac.
When Kenny shot out to the early lead in the 450SX main event, for a moment, it looked like that lead would be whittled down even further.
But Roczen never got comfortable on the hard-packed soil inside Nissan Stadium and after leading 12 laps he was passed by Lawrence. While he said post-race he was content on staying in second, on lap 13 Roczen slide out and lost two more spots.
“It was kind of stupid, honestly, because the lap before we hit that rut, and you sit into it to triple under the tabletop and I felt my rear tire ever so slightly high siding, meaning the rut on the exit was kind of going away, and I was mindful of that going in there, but yet it catches you,” he said post-race.
While he limited damage by moving back into third, he now finds himself 10 points back of Lawrence with just four rounds left in the championship. Asked if anything changes in regards to the championship as the series heads to Cleveland for a Triple Crown race this Saturday, Kenny emphatically said: “Nothing changes on my side.”
His full post-race interview is below:
This was a crazy one. I want to know what mental space did you have to tap into in order to fight back after things didn’t go right.
Ken Roczen: First of all, a tough day all day, right? The track was just like Cooper said, they’re just so drastically different than the weekend before, so it was tricky all day. I do think that there wasn’t really a whole lot that was separating us. The times were really close, and we’re all doing the same rhythms and having said that, coming race time, it was actually quite a bit different than it even was during practice. So, after we got going there, I was pretty comfortable where I was, but Hunter was riding really well, and after he got by me, I was totally fine settling for a second. I just wasn’t feeling quite like how I have been the last three races on the track and everything. So, I was doing the best that I could and staying with him and just see where he’s going, and then if the opportunity arises towards the later stages, I’ll go for it.
But I was fine where I was, and then sure enough, a lap later, I just tossed it over. I got lucky; I pulled in the clutch and kicked it a couple of times and got it going right away again. But obviously, I lost two positions, and then from there on, I was just really focused on at least getting on the podium, just minimizing the points gap. Obviously, I would’ve loved to get Cooper [Webb], but there just wasn’t enough for me to go forward. I was like, okay, let’s settle down, bring this in on the podium. You just got to go until the checkered flag flies.
Tonight, you didn’t have the best start, obviously, but you made up a lot of time in those first laps. Can you elaborate a little bit more on why your starts weren’t as good, and then what were the positives from the night?
Yeah, good question. Next question? I don’t know, it wasn’t my best. I got lucky. I mean, I got eighth gate pick, and then I went on the outside of Coop, and the rut wasn’t the greatest, but I felt like position-wise, even if I didn’t get the jump, it was probably the best to get around the turn, and I made it work too. After the first turn, I came out really solid. And those are the kind of times where you have to execute, and that’s what we did. This week I didn’t ride any Supercross at all this week, so I didn’t do any starts or anything for some that’s actually a good thing. We’ve had a lot of rain in Florida, so I’m hoping to ride a little more this coming week. But to be honest, after everything that happened, I’m really not mad about where I ended up. Everything’s still good.
You’ve talked about the last week or two here in the presser about Larry’s [Brooks, team manager] advice to you to not look at the championship points. That’s also different, though, when you’re coming off the wins, the building or starting to chip away, having a little bit different result this weekend. In terms of the final point standings, are you still able to keep that same mindset, or do you feel it creeping in?
Absolutely. Nothing changes on my side.
Talking about the conditions tonight, again, we’ve had a couple rounds that have been extremely rutty last week into this week. In the absolute opposite ends of the spectrum, we’ve asked a lot of the guys this yourself; you’ve been very adamant about not changing anything really at all this year. So did we stick to that today? Anything you found that helped with the hard-pack conditions?
I didn’t do a click. I actually very much agree with Hunter [Lawrence] when the track is like that, if your bike’s in a good spot, it is best to just leave it and adapt to what’s given to you from the track rather than trying to look for something that’s probably, most likely, not going to be there. So I didn’t do anything.
Throughout the main event, as the track slowly got worse, I noticed that your whoop speed drastically decreased. Was the whoops something that you kind of struggled with all day, or was it just simply the track deterioration at the end of that race that was kind of making it difficult?
I honestly feel like I sucked in the whoops the entire main event, beginning and in the end, I just ended up jumping them and was terrible at it. I made it work, but I was definitely more comfortable throughout the entire day than in the whoops, because we were able to skim and they had just a little bit more moisture, and you’re able to commit a little bit more. So, I right away just stuck to jumping, which is not my favorite, but I figured that that’s probably the safer and most consistent route to go. And I was just trying to do every lap that I did that, trying to get a little bit better at it and figure it out to where I can be smooth.
Cooper Webb talked about extreme conditions. Obviously, last weekend we went from a really rutty track, and then this weekend we went to a hard-pack track. What are some of the areas that you find to be the harder areas that you’d like to see Dirt Works and everybody, as the crew, maybe fix that particular area to make a safer racetrack for you guys?
That’s a tough one because I do really feel like for 90% of the time, they’re doing a really good job. I just think ultimately with the weather that we’ve had here and it being a day race, it’s just impossible. Either you extremely overwater it in the morning, which makes the qualifying super miserable, and then most likely, if it were a night race, you would maybe have a little bit more moisture in it, and it would be halfway fine. But with these daytime races, 80 degrees, I just don’t really see anything changing. But the gaps in between, you’re waiting around for a few hours. If you were to just go practice for a couple of hours and water it really good and you have somewhat consistent conditions, it’d be fine. But over an entire day with 80 degrees, I just don’t really know what else you would do besides overwatering it. And then once it’s concrete like that, hard-pack, same like the whoops that you got to stay away from water, it’s better when you actually have a straight-up blue groove. You actually have a little bit of traction rather than having moisture on it.
So, going back to your crash, was it just a mental lapse, or was it related to the track, and how dry it was?
It was kind of stupid, honestly, because the lap before we hit that rut, and you sit into it to triple under the tabletop, and I felt my rear tire ever so slightly high siding, meaning the rut on the exit was kind of going away, and I was mindful of that going in there, but yet it catches you. I don’t even know. I don’t remember if my rear slipped out or if I ended up kind of tucking the front. I would have to watch it again, but it happened so quickly, and the lap before that was exactly what I was afraid of, and then it happened. It just was what it was.
Photos: octopi.media
