Soaring Eagle/Jimmy John’s RCH Suzuki’s Ken Roczen is going to have to do it the opposite way this year. Last year he came out on fire, winning two of the first three races and nailing his starts every time. This year he’s started slow, both in the races and in the points, but with his victory at Round 5 on Saturday night in Glendale, Arizona, things are trending in the right direction.
But Kenny knows he has more to work on. We talked to him after the race when he hopped off of the podium.
Racer X: First of all, what was the sense when you come through the first turn and you’ve got a good start? What’s the feeling after the way the first few rounds have gone?
Ken Roczen: It’s amazing. For once I only got peppered in the heat race. I’m usually all [black] and blue and stuff. But it felt great to just have a clear track and ride my own race. The track was something else out here tonight. It was way more high-speed than it usually is. It was a lot harder than the previous races we have done now. So it was definitely something different. Longest start straight I’ve ever done in a supercross race, which was pretty cool. I think it’s definitely more of a safer way. I feel like the field just spreads out a little bit. I really like it. It was tough out there. I was a little bit too cautious in the whoops. I feel like that’s where I lost the most. But nothing to complain about, we did get it done. The biggest thing, it feels super awesome to be at the very top finally, but we’re not done. We’re going to keep clicking them off and keep putting in work. We’re going to enjoy tonight and tomorrow and get back to work on Monday. Most important thing is just to keep a steady program and not quit.
So do you still feel that there’s areas where “I could have done this better,” or “we can work on that?”
Absolutely. You could see Ryan [Dungey] caught me a little bit here and there, and I definitely think the biggest part was in the whoops. I usually feel really good in the whoops but I was just a little bit too cautious. It’s really hard not to be cautious, and it’s absolutely actually the worst thing you can do. But it’s over. We got it done tonight. It’s a long time coming. We went third, second, first. Finally the starts are getting better and we’re going to keep practicing them and get some good starts. It makes life a lot easier.
Those whoops did look tough, though.
They are. They’re pretty big. They built them super steep. You can’t really roll through them, so if you get out of shape and you miss one or something, you drop your front end, it doesn’t look too good. The gnarliest part is actually when you come up on lappers you can’t control them. So you’ve got to commit and just pray, honestly, that the guys in front of you just keep it somewhat straight.
How much have the starts been a part of the weekly program now?
I’m doing tons of starts every day. I’ve usually been fine on my starts but it was really just something that wasn’t clicking. So we just kept doing it and kept doing it, just to get some consistency.
The thing is that when you start racing, you start breathing really hard in the beginning and I feel like then it just starts settling a little bit, honestly.
You didn’t just have the boss here tonight; you had the boss’s boss [team owner Carey Hart’s wife, Pink].
[Laughs] I got the boss’s boss here tonight too, yeah. It was awesome. I didn’t see her all day, so it was good to finally see her tonight [after the race]. Everybody was in the house, so it was great to win, especially in the new stadium.
What do you think of this new stadium?
The new stadium’s rad. It’s super big, as you can see. I think the location is awesome. I might actually go to Scottsdale tomorrow to watch some golf.
I did see a golf themed helmet this weekend.
Yeah, Red Bull and Air Tricks had done that for me. Ricky Fowler, he’s playing, and he’s a friend of mine. He came to the bus earlier and said, “What’s up?” So it looks like we’re going to go and hang out with him tomorrow.
This start, how much faster are you going, do you think? Are you up to a different gear than you normal?
Yeah, I shifted twice actually.
And you usually don’t?
No, you usually just shift once. It depends the gearing of your bike. Sometimes, I know Shorty [Andrew Short] back in the day he started in third, so sometimes he didn’t even have to shift.
So you got to fourth? You went second, third, fourth?
Yes, exactly.
But it feels safer just because there’s not dudes around you?
I just feel like the field spreads out a little bit more, so there’s not too much tangling going on. Even though I feel like it did get pretty close actually in that first corner.
At one point Eli [Tomac] was keeping you pretty honest, maybe the first half. Did you have an idea of where he was or were you just doing your own thing?
I saw him here and there. He got close a little bit. I didn’t let him stress me out. I just rode my own race and finally got a little bit of a gap.
Once you got out there racing and stuff, you got into that race pace, how much different was it from the previous races?
Obviously the lap times have been pretty long again. San Diego, I think it was in the forties. Here we had over a minute lap time. Plus the track being so hard, it’s not easy to ride a 450 on such hard pack because they do have a lot of power. You’ve got to be really easy on the throttle.
Do you feel it more at the end? You add ten or twenty seconds a lap times twenty, it ends up being quite a bit longer race. Does that add up? Are you more winded? Do you pace yourself a little more or anything like that?
The thing is that when you start racing, you start breathing really hard in the beginning and I feel like then it just starts settling a little bit, honestly. It gets better towards the end. I think for a lot of riders it’s not the lap times, it’s really just with a track like that, how loose can you stay, how can you not tighten up, especially with a hard-pack track like that. You’ve got to hold on quite a bit. Those whoops and stuff, they sometimes make you hold your breath. So it’s important to keep a good rhythm and just focus on your breathing and stay loose.
