Ken Roczen isn’t giving up. Last week in Santa Clara he kept heat on Ryan Dungey for the entire main event, and then Saturday night in Indianapolis he went a step further on his Soaring Eagle/Jimmy John’s/RCH Suzuki, pressing and eventually passing the championship leader. But then he made a mistake of his own, and Dungey got back past. Overall, the twenty-lap duel on a super-rutted Lucas Oil Stadium track was probably the most exciting of the year. But Kenny came up just short. He talked about it after the race.
Racer X: Thanks for providing I think maybe the race of the year. You’re probably pissed you got second, but it was a great race. You pushed hard to come from sixth or seventh to the lead at one point, and one mistake away from maybe winning.
Ken Roczen: It was a great race. My start was absolutely terrible but I felt like I was riding really good. I put in a hard push and came close to him many, many times and actually made the pass at one point, but I almost wheelied my brains out on the dragon’s back and I had to roll the finish line. Ultimately I wish the race would have been five laps longer because I wanted to go for another push. If I wouldn't have made that mistake [when leading]… when he throws dirt clods at you and stuff, I couldn't really see the ruts sometimes because you can’t just pull a tear-off because it was so gnarly. And then I had a clear lap and I felt like I really could have put in some good laps. But we made some changes to the bike. I wanted to make them. That’s helped me out big time and I feel like we’re onto something right now. I feel like it was a strong ride. I hope the people enjoyed it. It was probably one of the most fun races for me to ride.
Nothing out of the ordinary as far as slamming anybody—I think that was pretty good racing.
Yeah, I didn’t want to leave anything on the table. I was trying really hard. Reeled him in a bunch of times but ultimately he won. It’s not what we want but we can only just push so much and that’s what we did. The track was absolutely gnarly and we came away here safe.
It seemed like you could make time on him almost when you needed to, and maybe he was struggling a bit.
Exactly. Every time he had a little gap I closed it right back up. The thing is, it’s really hard to set yourself up because you have to jump straight in those ruts because they were just so deep. Even the last lap, I hit the wrong rut before the whoops and it just shot me so high. It was kind of sketchy but it was what it was.
Dragon’s back sketchiest or the triple on was sketchiest? Or the triple out after that?
Everything, honestly. I crushed the dragon’s back in the beginning. I hit the second to last and I jumped it all the way, and then I missed the top one once and cased it. But the whole track was pretty gnarly!
