Kenny’s win in Arlington is the type of win that could make a believer out of the #94 and change the season. Photo by: Hoppenworld – Words by: Dan Lamb
Over the first six rounds of the 2016 Monster Energy Supercross, an FIM World Championship, RCH/Soaring Eagle/Suzuki’s Ken Roczen had beaten Red Bull/KTM’s Ryan Dungey in one main event—a win in Glendale—but in a lot of fans’ minds and probably Kenny’s mind as well, it wasn’t straight up. Kenny got to the front early, while Dungey started around midpack and was catching the Suzuki rider late in the race. Last weekend in Arlington, though, Kenny got his second win of 2016, and it was a twenty-lap one-on-one chess match that the German came out on top of.
In the main event, Kenny grabbed the holeshot, was passed by the #1 and immediately jumped back on the defending Champ and passed him back. From there, it was a mental battle that saw Kenny stretch the lead to two seconds, only to see Dungey reel him right back in. This went on for all twenty laps, and Kenny held on to cross the line with the sixth 450SX main event win of his career. With the win, Kenny cut into Dungey’s 450SX Championship points lead by three points, but he is still twenty-three points adrift of the lead.
After the race, we tracked down a very happy and confident Kenny to talk about his win. You can read MotoXAddicts’ Chase Yocom and RacerXOnline’s Jason Weigandt’s talk with Ken below.
Ken, you picked up the second win of your season, you have to be pumped on it.
Yeah, we got another victory. Me and Oscar [Wirdeman, Ken’s mechanic] said the entire day that we were going to turn things around, and we started tonight. We put that in our heads, and we believed in it. We started in the heat race—got a win there—and that’s where it starts. We knew we needed a good position for the main event, so we won that.
We went into the main event with strong thoughts, and I think that’s what got me the holeshot too. I just really wanted it, and in my eyes, I made the perfect start. It’s been a long time coming. I think I have more actual wins than I have holeshot awards. (laughs) It’s pretty rad for me to get those. From really crappy starts to a holeshot tonight was great. Obviously, Ryan [Dungey] was right behind me, and we had a good battle for the first couple of laps. He made a pass on me, and I knew I didn’t want to let him get away and cruise to a victory. I really wanted it, so I passed him back, and from then on, it was wide open ’til the checkered flag came out. He was right on my tail the entire time. There was nowhere to relax. There were some spots on the track that were really difficult to do and required a lot of focus, but we really hit our marks. A couple of little mistakes from both of us. We didn’t hit the quad a few times, and I’m not sure if that [jumping the quad] was making up a lot of ground, but it was good to do. We had some tacky spots and some slick spots, but it was definitely a fun race. This is the way you want to win a race. We’re going to have some great momentum going into the week, and I’m going to fight back and be aggressive next weekend.
What did you see in that gate pick? I saw that you lined up next to [Vince] Friese on one side and [Mike] Alessi on the other, and they both holeshoted the heat races. Did you have any thoughts like, “I might get pinched off,” or anything?
No, not at all. I had a good gate and I believed in myself so I didn’t really care who was next to me. I just looked in the first corner the entire time and knew that I was going to be there first. It’s a lot about focus. We’ve been working on them [starts] a lot, and I think at one point, we might have worked on it too much to where today all day I didn’t really do practice starts—nothing—and kind of just winged it. It was a lot better. At one point, you can do too many, and we’ve done our work. We’ve done starts over and over and over and over, and it just seems like you get to a point where you focus on every little detail and that’s when things kind of go sideways. We just did our thing tonight.
How hard is it, because last week wasn’t the best? How do you bounce back like that and all of a sudden show up this morning and be like, “Today’s going to be good”?
We struggled a little bit last weekend with the bike. Not that it was a big change, but it helped me big time with balance. I went into the first practice right away, and the bike felt good to me. That, I think, was the key point. I feel like now I can leave it where it’s at and just kind of go to every practice track or to every race and just leave it. Before, we had our struggles, especially San Diego first practice last week. I felt like a novice out there; that’s never a good sign. Not that I care too much, because I know once you come to the race, I’ll make something happen, but it’s just I couldn’t ride the way I wanted to ride. Obviously tonight we gapped the field pretty hard. Why didn’t I do that last weekend? So we made some little changes and I feel like that helped me out a lot, just to go confident into the first practice and kind of keep the bike the same way the whole day.
You’re not a guy that usually seems to struggle with confidence. You seem like you’ve done a good job the first six races—you got that one win. You never seem to get really discouraged even though the points were getting stretched out.
I’m not, and still I’m not. I know what I’m capable of, and we are working really hard. That’s really all you can do, kind of just going into the weekend with a clear mind. I know what I want, and I want to win. I’m going to do, for sure, everything I can to be on the top spot. If it doesn’t happen, well, at least I tried. It’s not that I leave anything out there. I think that’s one of biggest things. That’s why I’m still keeping calm, because we do still have a few races left. It’s tough out there. The competition is really strong and the tracks get sketchy sometimes. Anything can happen, really.
Everyone was talking about how this one was legitimately rough. “This track was bumpy and chewed up,” is what I heard a lot of riders saying.
Really?
You didn’t think so?
No, not at all. I felt like there were way worse.
Every guy has said that.
I don’t know! I think previously there were other tracks that were way gnarlier in my eyes. We pushed the entire time, and some of the other tracks they kind of get to a point where, okay, you’ve got to kind of keep calm. For example, Oakland was super rough. This was nothing compared to Oakland in my eyes, but we did get some good ruts and it was slippery. You had to hit your marks, bottom line, but I didn’t think it was something way out there that it got super rough.
There was a rhythm going into the tunnel and you guys [you and Dungey] were jumping it different, I think, at one point. You might not have known he was behind you. I think he picked up on the way you were doing it. There were a few different spots where you had different lines and he had different lines. I think he cut down out whoops different. Did you feel him back there doing different things or were you actually just thinking of your own deal?
Well, Ryan is really good on staying low in the turns and getting a good drive. After the tunnel, we all were finishing the turn kind of, and then I went in there and there was just a soft spot. Not that I almost crashed, but I made a mistake and I knew right away that we were going to have to start taking a new line. So I started cutting down a little bit earlier. When a battle like this is going on, you’ve really got to make the right choice. You don’t have a whole lot of time to really make up your mind. That’s the thing with tonight. The ruts start really early, so how can you protect it. If you protect your line, you square up, and he just hits his marks, so he’s right next to me. It’s so tough, especially when lappers are coming. You hit them at a bad spot, he catches right back up and leads from that, and he gets confidence. It’s definitely not easy out there, but I never looked back. I was hitting my marks and I was just doing my thing the entire time. In my eyes that’s something champions do. He’s really good at that stuff, too. That’s why he’s such a good competitor.
