Words by: Dan Lamb – Above Photo by: CJ Zimmerman –
There’s not much more we can say about RCH / Soaring Eagle / Jimmy John’s / Suzuki’s Ken Roczen‘s 2016 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross 450MX Championship run that hasn’t already been said. It was an amazing season for the German, and in true Championship fashion, the #94 capped off the year with his eighth 1-1 performance of the season.
Just as he’d done in 18 of the 22 prior motos, Kenny quickly got to the front in both Ironman National motos and methodically broke the field’s will over thirty-minutes plus two laps. Even after celebrating clinching the 450 Championship at Budds Creek with a heavy regimen of Coors Light and pizza, Kenny was still too much for the rest of the class at the finale.
After the season-ending checkered flag, Kenny sat down for the last time to answer questions from the press. MotoXAddicts’ Chase Yocom was there to hit record and ask some questions.
Ken, another 1-1 today for your eighth overall win of the season. Congratulations on a great season. The racing was obviously a little bit tighter up front in moto number two than moto number one today. Can you go ahead and take us through your day?
Yeah, we really didn’t know what was going to happen with the weather. It seems like yesterday or the day before it was going to be fine, and then all the sudden it changed and it was supposed to pour all day. There ended up being no clouds in the sky, and it ended up being a beautiful day. Obviously it was a little sloppy in the morning, but it changed. In the first moto, it was still a little rough in some spots with the mud and everything, but I knew for the second moto it was going to be a lot better. I grabbed awesome starts. I holeshotted the first one, and in the second one, I was top three. I just put in a good charge in the second one and went for another win. I said it last weekend; we want to do another 1-1 and finish the season off, not just slack around. That’s exactly what we did, and I can’t be any happier. It’s good now to take some time off and enjoy everything. As good as the season was, we’ll just let the whole thing settle in and enjoy.
How much did your social media blow up with the whole two-stroke thing this week? [Ken was thinking of racing an RM250 two-stroke, but a rule kept that from happening.]
I probably had 1500 comments on that picture (laughs)—and they were not all positive—but I was bummed. I’m always up for shits and giggles, but I wasn’t able to race it, so I had to put that out of my mind and get back to the focus of racing my normal bike.
How much did the track change from the first moto to the second moto? Did you have to make any changes? You looked super comfortable.
I made just a little change in the second practice in the mechanics’ area, but after that, I left it. The track changed quite a bit. Like I said, in the first moto, it was sloppy in spots, and in the second moto, it was a good race track. You could see the ruts were pretty deep—and overall it was a pretty gnarly track—but I left my bike the same all day. At least I know how it reacts.
So what’s on the dinner menu tonight?
I haven’t really thought about that yet. Something good! No matter what it is, it will be something good.
The pizza and Coors seemed to work pretty well for you last week. (laughs)
It did, and it will!
What was your motivation today? You certainly didn’t ride like a guy who had the title clinched.
Honestly—I’m not lying—it was really tough this whole week. I tried to tell myself, “Dude, it’s not over; we have another race,” but at the same time, things are wrapped up. I kind of went into vacation mode almost. It was really hard. I went out to the track and started riding and I kind of just rode around like, “Here we go.” I was kind of wondering what I was doing there. It felt like the season was over, but it’s not. We still had another race to go. I took it easy this week. I was on the bike just to keep the feeling. I knew for a fact I was going to show up here and my mental game was going to be on point and everything would change. I just went out and rode and had fun.
Talk a little about what you and this team [RCH / Soaring Eagle / Jimmy John’s / Suzuki] were able to accomplish this year. I think you were the first privately funded team to win the 450MX Championship.
It’s huge! If you were to ask me last year at this press conference what next year was going to be like and what the changes would be, I would have said, “I do not know,” but it’s pretty amazing for me to see what we have done, where we came from and how much of a low we had last year. I guess, like you said, we’re the first privately owned team to pull this off, and I think that speaks for itself. I had so much more fun this year. The team vibe was way better and obviously my bike was way better than last year too.
Can you talk about your relationship with team owners Ricky [Carmichael] and Carey [Hart]. Last weekend we saw you wrestling Ricky on social media.
Ricky, Carey and I are actually really good friends, especially Ricky; he’s a character. I love hanging out with him besides dirt bikes. That’s the most fun. (laughs) I’m probably actually going to go down to visit him in the next couple of weeks and go out with him on the boat to have some fun. It’s cool for Carey to be here at the last race of the season. He wasn’t here last weekend, but he came this weekend. It’s exciting to have him around ’cause he never really goes to any outdoor races.
Have we seen the last race for you on the Suzuki? And what’s on the calendar for you?
As of right now, this is for sure my last race until Monster Cup. I’m planning on racing Monster Cup, but right now, it’s vacation mode.
