Kenny ended a rough season with winning the final moto of the year. Interview by: Chase Yocom – Photo by: Hoppenworld
Last year, in his rookie 450MX season, Ken Roczen won five Lucas Oil Pro Motocross 450MX overall wins and capped off an incredible freshman year by winning the 2014 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross 450MX Championship. After his dream year on the 450 was in the books, Kenny took a huge risk and left the factory Red Bull/KTM squad for the privately owned RCH/Soaring Eagle/Suzuki team. It was a giant gamble and one that looked to be working after he won two of the first three 2-15 Monster Energy Supercross 450SX main events. Unfortunately, Kenny crashed and injured his ankle at round four and was forced out of the series early after re-injuring his ankle in Daytona.
The big question then became, can Ken defend his 450MX Championship on the RCH Suzuki. Unfortunately, before he could even begin to answer that question, Ken picked up a back injury while getting ready for Hangtown. The #1 fought through his back injury and looked poised to make a run defending his Championship after winning his first overall of the year at High Point, but he could never find any momentum. Struggles with his health and getting the RCH/Suzuki to work for him quickly became the theme of German’s 2015 motocross season.
At the end of the day, Ken was still able to salvage a second overall in the 2015 450MX Championship, but he will have to wait another year to silence the critics of his bold move to leave the Red Bull/KTM squad. After his 2015 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship came to a close, Ken answered some questions for us in Indiana. Ken talks about his year, his struggles, his upcoming back surgery and the possibility of seeing him at Red Bull Straight Rhythm and the Monster Energy Cup. You can hear what Kenny had to say in his “Inside Story” interview below.
You were fighting for 2nd in the 450MX Championship going into today. Was that on your mind going into today?
Definitely we wanted to finish off the season. Coming in as a champion and after all those struggles, we definitely still wanted to finish it [450MX Championship] off with second. It’s always tough. I don’t actually know what’s tougher, if it’s the one being hunted or if it’s the one hunting. I was 5 points back [of Barcia in 2nd], which is not a whole lot, but it’s still enough to where if you’re not necessarily winning and you’re basically second or third, you’re following each other, and sometimes even finishing behind somebody. There’s not a whole lot of points to make up. Obviously Justin is another rider that has been really consistent and been going really good, but coming in here, my whole confidence the last three races and things with the bike have improved a whole lot and it makes a big difference now. Finally riding on the same thing during the week and having fun again—enjoy. I rode my bike during the week and doing my thing, and I think that’s a big part of it. Coming in here I was actually really, really relaxed. It was the last race of the season, but I just now started to enjoy things again. It helped me out a lot to ride the way I usually ride. It was good.
In the first moto, I had a huge struggle. I didn’t start very good, and right after the first turn I had a bunch of dirt in my goggles. The dirt was really wet. I got some in my eye. It was really hard to get that blur off. Then, in the middle of the moto, I struggled a little bit and got by Justin and I picked things out toward the end. But I ran out of tear-offs, because I was so deep in the pack. I had some struggles there. I was charging the whole moto and picked up some positions in the end, so that was good. The second moto, I got a way better start and made it happen pretty early in the moto and finally had some clear track and rode my race. The track was super gnarly, probably one of the gnarliest tracks this year for sure. It was super rutted and super bumpy. It was good to finish off the season with a win. That’s what I personally wanted to do, just to finish it off strong.
In the end of moto number one, was your focus so intense that you didn’t know you had a podium position?
I didn’t know that to begin with. I never even watched the pit board once, so I had no idea what was going on besides trying to pass Justin in front of me. Then I all of a sudden I saw [Justin] Bogle and I was like, “ah dang, I can make up more points. I got to get him too.” And then I kept riding; it was the last lap. Then, there was [Christophe] Pourcel, and I was like, “I got to get him too.” I just kind of charged in the end, made it happen and luckily scored some good points. I went through the finish and the guy that was standing there, he sent [Jason] Anderson to the podium and he told me to go back. I don’t know what he position I was, so I just made my way back from the podium. I had no idea that I was third either, so just went back and then they told me, “You should have gone to the podium.” I’m like, “Well, I got told to go back.”
I think it had been since High Point since you won. That’s thirteen motos or something like that. How important was it to get this win today to carry into next year?
It was really important, but I knew the whole time that soon things would get a little better, and it’s not going to be as big of a problem or as hard to finish at least on the podium. I haven’t even been getting podiums—there was some big struggles. Ever since Unadilla I started feeling a lot more comfortable. If a rider feels comfortable he’s going to go good. I was really happy with how things felt. My back has held up the whole time too, so that was a big thing. Ever since I hurt my back I couldn’t go to the gym, I couldn’t row. I was very limited to what I could actually do to train myself, but that was another hard part because it’s really hard to get a good structure because I like to do a lot of variety of training and really keep a structure. There really wasn’t a lot of different things I could do, so I just kept doing my thing. I had a bunch of fitness testing and stuff and everything was great there. So together with good fitness and together with a solid bike, it makes our lives a lot easier.
With all the injuries this year and all the other stuff, is second—I know it’s not what you wanted—but do you kind of look back and go, wow, I still got second in the championship? It’s not a complete failure.
For sure, and that was important. Coming in as a champion, obviously Ryan and the KTM team, they were super solid this year and super consistent, and then even after Hangtown, the first race, I got eighteenth in the first moto. Last year, that would have been really hard to even make up because we were so close all the time. We were always battling with just little points. So it started already there. And then, even my back was so very, very bad at the first race, and you go to Glen Helen and I still couldn’t do a whole lot during the whole week. So I just started building from there. I learned a lot this year about the bike, about settings, about what to tell the team. And I think the team learned a lot too. There was a little bit of stuff going on in-between, but for me it was important that toward the end of the year, we needed to start figuring things out because we were red-lining. Meaning we didn’t have any good results anymore. It’s really, really hard if it’s weekend after weekend after weekend not being happy and to always keep positive. You try as a rider for as long as possible and at one point just something needed to change. It was good to come back at the last few races to show that we could be up front and we can still win. After Ryan had a huge points gap, and then obviously Justin came and he passed me in the championship, after that it was just like, we’ve got to at least get second. I was battling with Ryan last year, and now he won this year, so I got second. It’s still a lot better for me to finish second instead of third.
Talk about the back surgery after the season. Is this a little procedure? Is it a major thing?
I don’t think it’s going to be anything big. They’re not fully going to cut my back and fuse it or anything like that. What they’re doing, I believe, is they’re going to go in there with a hot needle or something and they melt the fracture to attach the bone again because there’s a piece of bone that’s a wing on the vertebrae that’s just floating around right now. I think they’re going to reattach it. So I’m getting the surgery on August 31 in LA with Dr. Gray—he’s a Red Bull doctor. I think the recovery shouldn’t be anything super, super crazy. But people react different to these kinds of procedures, so I can’t really say a whole lot, if it’s going to be a week, if it’s going to be three weeks, or whatever. But I think we’ll be good.. It’s important to get the body all fixed up again. But I’m already finishing out the season strong. I’m already really motivated. I know everyone needs to take some time off to regroup, but I’m already very motivated for the off season and to get myself ready for Supercross
Will we look for you at any of the off season events?
Obviously, see how the recovery goes, but I would love to do Red Bull Straight Rhythm this year. I couldn’t do it last year, and it looked like a lot of fun, so it would be my first time. I think it’s just an event that would be super fun to do. It’s not a championship where you have to go buck-wild all the time, so I want to go there and hopefully ride some practice and compete there. I think it will be good fun. And obviously Monster Cup, too—that’s always the plan.
Congratulations on securing second in the 450MX Championship.
Thanks.
