If you’re looking for a high-water mark in KTM’s rise in Monster Energy Supercross, look no further than last Saturday night at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Between 450SX winner Ryan Dungey and 250SX winner Marvin Musquin, Red Bull KTM dominated the whole event. Both led from start to finish, and both will now wear the red plates as point leaders when the championship resumes at the Georgia Dome this weekend. In Dungey’s case, this will be the latest that an orange bike has held the red plate in the big class. In Marvin’s case, this is the first time he’s ever led the points in AMA Supercross.
Of course KTM has won events and championships before, but supercross has always been just a little out of reach for them. They have dominated so much in the past half-dozen years on the FIM World Championship circuit that it’s hard to remember a time the brand was shut out of the title hunt. In off-road racing in America, they are the juggernaut. And they hold the AMA 450 Motocross Championship, even though they lost the rider who earned that #1 plate, Ken Roczen, to the Suzuki-mounted RCH Racing team.
And that’s probably a large reason why the Arlington finishes must feel so good for Roger DeCoster and the entire Red Bull KTM team. Roczen left for a change of scenery and a chance to get back on the brand he grew up racing upon, and he went straight to the top, winning Anaheim 1. But ever since then, Dungey, fourth in the opener, has been on a methodical rise to the top. He won Anaheim III and now Arlington, and he’s got 12 points on Roczen (and almost twice as much on third-place Trey Canard). Dungey has never looked more comfortable or aggressive on the bike as he does right now—whatever they have been doing to the bike is working for him. (It’s working for Andrew Short too, as the veteran racer on the BTOSports.com KTM had another solid performance in Arlington, for fifth-place.)
As for Musquin, the 25-year-old looked truly at ease out there, finally starting out his supercross season healthy and now seemingly ready to make a title run. Marvin was fast every inch of the way, and even the unfortunate red flag to help the Asterisk Mobile Medical team aid Kyle Cunningham was taken in stride by Musquin.
It wasn’t that long ago that KTM was like a fifth wheel here on the AMA circuit, never quite bringing the resources that would allow them to get the talent they needed and put that talent on bikes as competitive as the ones coming from Japan. That’s no longer the case in Monster Energy AMA Supercross. Every Saturday night that they keep those red plates will be the new high-water mark for KTM, as well as for Ryan Dungey and Marvin Musquin.
