Photos and Interview by: Chase Yocom, Written by: Dan Lamb
Before you can win races, you must first get comfortable with the pace at the front, and with every good start Ken Roczen gets, the more laps he leads and the more comfortable he is becoming with pushing himself at that elite pace at the front. At the 2018 Spring Creek National on Saturday, Kenny got the holeshot in moto one and tried checking out, but when that didn’t work out and he found Eli Tomac breathing down his neck, he never stumbled under the extreme pressure for 20-plus minutes. Eli was eventually—with the help of some oblivious lapped riders—able to get around the #94 about the 25-minute mark of the race and push Kenny back to a 2nd place finish in the opening moto, but it was definitely not due to Kenny’s lack of trying. In the end, Eli’s pace was just too much for anyone to stop.
Ryan Dungey said something on the broadcast about being impressed with Kenny not being afraid to fail, and I could not agree more. A lot of riders when coming back from a lengthy injury layoff will choose to forego the pressure of racing at the front when they know they don’t quite have the race pace and fitness needed to win. Instead, they will choose to race from the back with less pressure until they’re up to speed. That’s not the way Kenny is doing it, and each week he seems closer and closer to finally staying up front and scoring his first win of the year.
In the second moto at Spring Creek both Marvin Musquin and Tomac got away from Kenny, but he was still able to cross the line in 3rd. The 2-3 score on the day gave Kenny his second straight 2nd overall and Redbud and Spring Creek marked the first time all year that he landed on the podium two weekends in a row. He seems to have the consistency part of his comeback worked out. Now it is time to figure out how to win again.
After the racing was over, MotoXAddicts’ Chase Yocom had a quick conversation with Kenny about his Spring Creek National.
Ken, great day for you. Another week of positive improvements and results. You have to be happy with your Spring Creek National. Take us through your day if you can.
Absolutely, I’m pretty happy. This was probably one of the best weekends we’ve had. I was pretty good in practice, and I’m usually pretty far off there. We didn’t do any bike changes. That helped out a lot. Overall, we had a good day. Those guys were going really good. The track was pretty gnarly in the second moto as well. I’m doing what I can. I’ve been getting good starts and we’re—knock on wood—staying off the ground. I’m really enjoying the process, and I feel like once we win again, it will just taste so much sweeter. I definitely had a good weekend. Now we’re going back to California for a week and hitting up the surf.
That sounds awesome. How much confidence have you been picking up leading the motos and all the laps that you have? In both the first and second moto you kept Eli Tomac behind you for twenty or so minutes.
Right now we’ve been doing a lot of changes to the bike because it wasn’t ideal yet. We want to get better and we especially want to use this year to do that and not next year. Next year we want to go for a championship. It’s good we’re going through all this. Today it was great to not have to doctor around with the bike too much. We’re going to keep it like that and hopefully ride the same bike. Obviously I’m going to California and we usually do some testing there, but we’re going to try to keep the same bike because I was pretty happy today. I’m sure once I ride the same bike over and over, that’s when I’m starting to pick up my speed and do my thing.
The team came out to Florida and you guys did some testing and you were happy with it. If you made any changes today at all, what were they?
No, we just did a couple clicker changes for the second moto which I thought was good. Other than that, we kept it the same pretty much all day.
I love how you’re just all out there. The surfing, talking fishing for scallops [on social media] and all that. Does that help you out with the moto when you keep it fun and not completely focus on racing?
I mean moto is a big part of my life, but you have to have a life besides that. What a better way to spend an off weekend than to do something different. I’m a big believer in having a balance.
I’m not going to lie, the scallops looked good too. (laughs)
Yeah, it was great. It’s kind of cool. I’m really into it—whether it’s fishing or even I would like to go hunting. You can catch your own food and it’s fresh. It’s great. I like things like that.
They talked about you maybe racing Motocross of Nations for Germany in the press conference today and it sounds like you’re really excited to do that. How important is it for you to race that and keep the momentum you have going into the off season?
Oh absolutely, it’s huge! We’ve been having ups and downs, but we had another good weekend. That’s two good weekends in a row. We’ll hopefully keep building and staying the same consistency towards the end of the season. It’s just good to keep some momentum, prep in the off season but also take some down time and also do some racing with des Nations and Monster Cup. It’s always important to have some balance, but obviously I’m still way behind. All the other guys, they’ve been racing for three years straight and I’ve been out for quite a bit. Off season is where we’re going to make it happen, and hopefully we’ll be 100% next year.
The scary thing is, you’re saying you’re way behind, but you’re up there finishing 2nd.
I’m also saying I’m way behind because those guys kept racing and I was out. It’s really hard to catch up. Eli is in his top form right now and he’s been racing for the past few years without getting injured. That helps out big time.
It’s been a lot of fun watching the crowd support for you. We love having you back too, but seeing the crowd loving having you back is cool. How cool is that?
Oh it’s great. The feedback that I’ve been getting is amazing. They make it all worth it and that’s pretty much why I come back to racing: because they support me the way they do. I usually take a lot of time after both motos to sign a lot of autographs and make them happy.
&nsbp;
Yeah, I also see you on the podium too when people are calling your name. You’re always pointing at them and smiling at them. It has to be cool having a rider of your stature acknowledging them like you do.
It’s fun making a kid’s day. I used to be a kid looking up to people. There’s nothing better than getting a high five or a smile thrown at you.
