Ryan Dungey really won the Santa Clara, California round of Monster Energy Supercross. He appeared to win the previous round of the series in Detroit, but had that win taken away after a penalty. This time the Red Bull KTM rider got out front—like he usually does—and held strong under heavy pressure from Ken Roczen to hold on for the win. Really this time. It was hard to get time with the top 450 riders after the race as they were all scheduled for WADA anti-doping testing, but we tracked Dungey down.
Racer X: Way to bounce back after that last race.
Ryan Dungey: Yeah, it definitely was good to get a win, especially after a couple weeks ago. It was a bummer to think we won, then to find out we didn’t. From that point I wanted to put it behind me. The best thing to do was to not dwell on it, that wasn’t going to change anything. Just have to learn to be better, and we can be better with those situations, dealing with them. I wanted to turn that energy that I spent thinking about into something in the future. I tried to forget that Sunday morning after the race and look forward. Had a good couple weeks, the off-weekend was good and I got to spend some time with the crew and relax. And it’s nice to be back racing again. It felt good to get a win here tonight. Any win is great. Kenny [Roczen] was putting the pressure on and that made it tough. It wasn’t the kind of track where you could gain anywhere—you would just lose if you made mistakes and lost the rear. You could lose a lot of time in one lap, and I just tried to stay focused on keeping the traction in the rear.
This track looked pretty simple.
It wasn’t. The layout was a little more simple, but nothing’s easy. Everything was tamer and it wasn’t hard to get the rhythms down, it was just being consistent while keeping the intensity up for twenty laps. That whole race, we were pushing the pace pretty hard. But that’s good. It’s what we train for and it’s how we practice so it’s not such a shock at the race. Every race is a lot of work and there’s a lot of effort that goes into each night.
Were you going as fast as you could or did you turn it up when Roczen got right on you?
After a few laps we settled in and got a lot better. At about the halfway point we ran into some lappers but I relaxed a bit and was able to hit my lines and find some new ones as well. We both got jacked up by our fair share with lappers, so I think that came out pretty even. Overall, as the race went on I was able to roll my corners better and loosen up. It was cold out so I ended up a bit tighter than normal.
The start was shorter this round.
Yeah, never got out of second gear. By the time the bike started to rev out it was time to shut it down for the corner. When the track is like this and everyone is doing the same thing it’s very important to get a good start because it makes it that much harder to make a pass because everyone’s in the same rhythm and line. It takes away the good lines. It was good we were able to get a start tonight—it was key. And I didn’t even really get it. Justin Bogle came up the inside and was able to make a pass and go from there. He made us work for it.
He pulled a Dungey on you.
He pulled a Dungey on me?
Yeah, Bogle came up the inside in he first turn like you’ve been doing.
Yeah, I came up the inside then he came up the inside. I saw his front fender and I was like, ‘I better open this turn a little bit more.’ He was fighting for it! I was surprised.
