Photo by: Simon Cudby
Fresh off his 2015 Monster Energy Supercross 450SX Champiponship, Red Bull/KTM’s Ryan Dungey looked confident and poised to add a third 450MX AMA Motocross Championship to his trophy case in 2015. The former two-time 450MX Champion has only lost the 450MX Championship three times—finishing 2nd all three times—in his five-year career, and with his nemesis, Ryan Villopoto, off contesting the MXGP World Championship and last year’s 450MX Champion, RCH/Suzuki’s Ken Roczen, coming in injured, all things pointed to the #5 being the favorite. Well, somebody forgot to share that memo with GEICO/Honda’s Eli Tomac because, so far, Tomac has been a rumor to most in the 450MX class. Everyone knows the #3 is in the race, but few have seen him after the gate has dropped.
In the opening round at Hangtown, Dungey kept Tomac close for a portion of moto one, but in the end, the 2013 250MX Champion rode away to win by 22-seconds and by over a minute and 30 seconds in the second moto. Behind Tomac, Dungey was by far the second best man at the opener, and six laps into round two at Glen Helen, it looked like the #5 had made some serious progress into solving the puzzle. Unfortunately, Dungey’s KTM stalled on lap seven while under pressure from Tomac and stalled again on the final lap to push him back to a sixth place finish.
In the second moto at Glen Helen, Tomac grabbed the holeshot and once again rode away for his fourth straight moto win of the year. The Honda rider again won by a healthy margin—23 seconds—and maintained his perfect record in 2015. Ryan was again the second best man at round two, but with a 6-2 score, he finished third overall and, more importantly, gave up another thirteen points in the 450MX Championship to Tomac. Not that there’s ever much consolation to take away from a 23-second loss, but it was 70 seconds closer than he had been in moto two at Hangtown. As it sits now, Dungey is second in the Championship, nineteen points behind Tomac.
After the race, Ryan Dungey sat down and answered some questions for us before heading back home to Florida to get ready for round three. You can hear what Ryan had to say in his “Inside Story” interview below.
I know it was a little bit of a frustrating day for you, Ryan, but still third overall. Can you give us your take on both motos today?
For sure, third place, I’m not sitting up here bummed. It’s a very respectable position for sure, but we want to win. That’s the goal. We give it our best. Sometimes, like today, first moto we were battling for the lead. Everything was going good, and then the bike started wanting to just kind of shut off. It just wanted to keep stalling. I’m not really sure, but it kept running. As soon as Eli got by me, things got worse and worse and he just took off. Obviously I was trying to maintain that. It was just a freak incident. It’s racing; it happens. It was nobody’s fault. It just happened. Second moto, we really tried to focus on putting our best foot forward and giving it all we got. I got off to a good start. I was right behind Eli. I was kind of following him in a lot. You know, it’s an improvement. I think last weekend we were a little bit further back and now we’re a little bit closer. A few more adjustments and a little bit more practice and keep trying to get better—I think we’ll be right there, but it’s just going to take a little bit more time. No discredit to Eli. He’s riding really good. We’re going to do everything in our camp to get to where we want to be.
We’re going to Lakewood, Colorado next weekend which is at high elevation. Is that something you adapt to well, or is that something you’re going to train for this week?
Definitely, but over the years I feel like it’s something I’ve gotten better and better at—altitude. It took a couple years. I used to really suffer, especially when it’s warmer up there. You feel it in the body as well as in the bikes. The bikes are slower. But the humidity in Florida is very high as well. I think when you train in humidity and then you go to high elevation, I don’t seem to to struggle any more. Colorado is a good track. I’ve had a lot of great success there, so I’m excited for that race.
I guess you’re going back to train in Florida now. Is this where the real grind or the real work begins? Settling in for the long haul of the season?
Yeah, there’s two races down out of twelve. I feel that, in the position we’re in, we’ve got our work cut out for us, but not in a bad way. I think it’s good. We’re going to work and get stronger. Every year you have a guy that pushes you. Last year, it was Ken. Now Ken’s getting better, but right now, it’s Eli. Those guys over at Honda seem to have things working good. We have to focus on ourselves and this gives us something to work for. I’m pushing myself and so is the team. There’s a lot of good to take from each race still. Like last week, we went to California and put in a good couple days of testing before press day. We made some improvements this weekend. What happened in the motos is what it is, but there are still positives. As long as we keep having some positives every weekend, we’ll get it turned around.
With those things you learned, will you keep making changes, or are you feeling better with the bike now?
Just fine tuning. We definitely did not reinvent the wheel by any means. At Hangtown, we just missed the setup. We were just too stiff, especially when it got to the second moto. Hangtown is a weird track, too. Overall, we made a couple minor changes the guys came up with last week and we tried and tested. We put in a long couple of days. With a new bike, sometimes it takes more time than you want, but it’s that much more rewarding in the end.
Alright, well, thanks for talking to us, and we’ll see you next weekend at Thunder Valley.
Thank you
